


you don't have to be a ghost amongst the living

by stelian



Series: fly, blackbird, fly [2]
Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Child Trafficking Mentions, Color Guard, Emotional Support Animals, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Group Bonding, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Knitting, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Slow Burn, eating disorder mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-09-11 12:10:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8979151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stelian/pseuds/stelian
Summary: Recovery, Kaz decided, was exhausting. Because who would have thought that, when you have years of Issues (capital necessary) buried somewhere inside of you, suddenly deciding to dig it all out of the grave you made years would be difficult?{or; how six people decide that Kaz's "coping mechanisms" suck and he definitely needs new ones; featuring dogs, stress knitting, doodling, baking, rifle twirling, beating the shit out of dummies, and more}





	1. no one needs your thick skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go! this is the fluffier half of the series, with a strong focus on recovery and group support. as you can tell from the tags, there are some heavier topics covered in here, but i do have quite a few trigger warnings in place. enjoy!

Recovery, Kaz decided, was exhausting.

It was biweekly therapy appointments where he brought back memories that he’d buried years ago. It was long nights trying to catch up on the work he missed on his week out, followed by nightmares because the memories felt so fresh again. It was choking back on his panic when someone brushed against him on the sidewalk, when he say in a full class and bodies were all around him, when the elevator (if it wasn’t broken) was filled with people and it was just like that morning-

And worst of all, it was everyone around him knowing and giving him looks like they thought he would shatter right in front of them.

Why had he signed up for this?

“Kaz, are you with me?”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, pulling himself back together to look at his therapist. Inej had specifically recommended Dr. Anders; apparently, she’d specialized in childhood trauma. He did have to admit that she was good.

“She’s a miracle worker,” Inej had said that one day in the hospital, her eyes glinting. “When I first went to her, I was a terrified child who flinched when anyone looked at her. I owe her so much.”

Currently, she sat with her legs crossed, clipboard balanced in her lap, quietly tapping her pen against the side of it. The sound was loud enough to be grounding, but not irritating. “I asked you about what tends to set you off. We’ve already discussed physical contact, but I suspect there’s more to it than that.” 

Her look was intense but not cruel, as if saying  _ lie to me, I dare you.  _ And, in response, Kaz reminded himself of the promised he’d made to himself.  _ Don’t hide. You’re here willingly. _

“Crowds,” he said, trying to push back memories of the time he’d passed out during orientation. “Swimming is… swimming’s a lot. And-” He steeled himself, he could do this- “There’s a certain scent, not just rot, but this sort of heavy, sick feeling that lingers in the air. It was like that before everything else happened.”

“Breathe,” she said. “You did very well.” A smile. “I can already start to see progress. A few weeks ago I couldn’t even get you to talk about any of your triggers.” She wrote something down, and then seemed to pause for a moment, tapping her pen again. “Did you ever think about an emotional support dog?”

“I’m sorry?” 

She must have been joking. There was no other answer.

“I’m serious,” she said, even though she maintained that small smile she kept most of the time. “There’s a lot of research showing benefits of companionship, especially for PTSD. Reading over my notes, I think that could especially help with your touch-aversion. Even though touching a dog is very different from a person, being in control like that might help. Plus, dogs can be very helpful when it comes to panic attacks.” She leaned forward in her chair. “Just consider it, okay? I’ll write you a recommendation, and if Housing gives you any issues just let me know.”

He glanced at the clock. They’d gone several minutes over, and he knew Matthias was waiting outside and had to get to class soon. So, without responding, Kaz stood up, grabbed his cane and his coat, and left.

“All ready?” Matthias said, quickly closing his book. Kaz walked right past him.

He didn’t know why his mind was so suddenly… blank. Maybe it was from the quick switch from uncovering emotions to then repressing them again, or-

_ Or _ it was because, back on the farm he’d grown up on, there had been a dog. Imogen, his mother had named her, like a character in a book she’d read. She’d been old, ragged; one of her legs had been lost in an accident years ago. She’d just come bounding up one day, probably from one of the neighbors whose fields had long since stopped producing. Kaz had secretly fed her kitchen scraps until she just never left. During the day, she’d run through the fields until her white coat was covered in dirt. At night, after they washed her, she’d settle down with Kaz and they’d sleep together, safe and happy.

And then a few days after the rain washed his father’s blood from the fields and Jordie was just deciding to sell the farm, she never came back in for the night. Kaz had cried until Jordie had gone out to find her, and he’d come back empty handed.

“She went with Dad. To protect him.” He’d reached down and gently ruffled Kaz’s hair, even though there were tears in his eyes. “But she’s still with you in spirit. You know she’d never leave you alone.”

For once, Kaz didn’t immediately discard the memory as something he didn’t want to think about because it involved happier slash sadder times. Instead, he let it wash over him.

“I’m getting a dog,” he said.

Matthias gave him strange look, but just shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

 

By the time Kaz realized Matthias had driven past campus, they were already pulling into the parking lot of a decrepit-looking animal shelter. He glanced at him, incredulous, but Matthias simply shrugged again. “I used to volunteer in a shelter for a while. One of the guys in charge was a Vietnam veteran. He always used to talk about how much his dog helped when he was having issues. So, I’m not surprised.” He pulled his keys out, but then paused. “How are you going to get around Housing, though? We’re not even allowed fish.”

“There’s some kind of certificate that would make it an emotional support animal, which I guess is almost always accepted? If not, I have more than enough dirt on Haskell that’s very non-ADA.” 

Haskell  _ did  _ have a reputation of being one of the worst Disability Services chairpeople around. Like the time he’d told Kaz that he was in so much pain because he was limping the wrong way when they’d met to go over his accommodations. And that was only scraping the  _ top  _ of what he’d done. 

One thing that was interesting about Ketterdam University was that there were very few disabled students. And it wasn’t for lack of trying, Anika, a girl who did her work-study in admissions told him once. She’d heard some of the counselors talking about the applicants, and they’d talk about the poor girl who was paralyzed in an accident when she twelve or the boy whose migraines were so bad he never knew if he’d make it through the day. It was common sense that, when you had these sort of issues, you milk it in your essay because ADA exists for a reason, right? Colleges were always seeking to diversify, and if you play the pity card just right they’ll never deny you. 

But those kids never made it in. They were perfectly acceptable, she’d said after she’d peeked at some of the files; maybe this one missed a lot of school or that one’s grades dropped the one year, but there were far worse students who were accepted. 

So Kaz talked to the other disabled students and made a file. They sometimes called themselves the Drag Haskell/Admissions Committee, because when that file was released…

It would be hell for him, essentially.

“You’re not going to drop the bomb, are you?” Matthias asked, concern evident in his eyes.

“Maybe. Who knows how many students he’s done this sort of shit to?”

He considered.

“You know, I think I’d be a bit happy to not see his face around for once.”

For the first time, they agreed on something.

At last, the two of them went inside, where they were greeted by an overly warm puff of air and a woman whose stooped back and mussed gray hair indicated she was perhaps a bit too old for this job. “Welcome!” she said, lifting her glasses chain from her chest to her eyes. “Cats are on the left, dogs are on the right, and small animals are back that way! Can I help you boys?”

“We’re good,” Matthias said. When they turned to the dog hall, he said in a low voice, “So, a lot of the dogs here are strays. You know, very skittish, vaguely feral, that sort. You find some friendlier ones around occasionally, though. It’s pretty easy to tell.” When Kaz just looked at him, he added, “After Nina broke up with me I spent some weekends here just helping out. It helps when you’re having an identity crisis.”

Kaz just gave him another look and turned his attention back to the dogs. True to his word, most of them must have been strays or abused (or both) because they tended to cower back when he’d approach. He’d spent time on the streets, he could relate; however, he  _ really  _ didn’t feel like trying to put an animal and himself back together at the same time. 

What caught his eye, however, was the large dog sitting in one of the “cages” on the end, staring at him with its head cocked slightly to the side. It didn’t look away when he made eye contact; instead, it seemed to try to move closer to the edge. “Hey,” he said softly as he knelt in front of it, ignoring the way his bad leg protested. When he reached out the slightest bit, the dog sniffed his hand briefly and then licked it.

“That’s Rotty,” the desk lady said, causing both Kaz and Matthias to jump due to her sudden appearance. “Five-year-old Rottweiler. He actually only came in here a few days ago. Very friendly; actually failed out of service dog training for being too friendly, or so I’ve been told. He’s very good for when you need support,” she said, turning her gaze towards Kaz.

Perhaps they hadn’t given her enough credit. She was certainly old, but there was a gleam in her eye that said she knew more than she let on.

He was about to ask Matthias for his thoughts when he took a second look at Rotty and saw the stump of one of his forelimbs, and he decided.

 

Four days later, Kaz was approved to have an emotional support animal, the first allowed on campus.

Five days later, Haskell’s employment was (at least) temporarily suspended due to allegations of discrimination against disabled peoples.

And, finally, six days later, a large, dark Rottweiler with a very uncreative name sniffed its way around a dorm room before settling down on the bed with uncomfortable black sheets.

“Really,” Kaz said, exasperated, but Matthias grinned.

“I think he’s trying to tell you to actually sleep for once.”

Maybe it was the warm presence curled up besides his legs, or the fact that he’d averaged two hours of sleep per night for the past week, but for once he fell into a restful sleep and didn’t wake up until morning.

 

_ Matthias  _ _ sent a photo _

(22:53)

 

**queena**

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

(22:54)   
  


_ jazz hands  _

DOGGO

(22:54)

 

**_Kool-aid_ **

PUPPY

(22:54)

 

Inej

I WANNA PET IT

(22:54)

 

**queena**

WHERE DID THE PUPPY COME FROM

(22:56)

MATTHIAS DON’T BE AN ASSHOLE 

(22:57)

YOU CAN’T JUST TEASE US WITH A PICTURE OF A DOG AND NOT ANSWER MY QUESTIONS

(23:00)

I LITERALLY HATE U 

(23:14)

IF U ACTUALLY HAD A NORMAL SLEEP SCHEDULE I WOULD DEFINITELY COME DOWNSTAIRS AND VISIT UR STUPID ADORABLE PUPPY

(23:43)

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: i once had a teacher tell me i was in so much pain because i was limping wrong. this was while she made me try to walk a mile despite my numerous gym notes saying limited participation (: (:


	2. you don't always have to be on top

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> subtitled: matthias is actually the mom friend

A few things Matthias learned about Kaz:

  1. Jesper was right when he said he never slept. It was extremely rare for Kaz to sleep more than a few hours each night. Matthias caught him sleeping the first night, but after that, he was always either awake and on his laptop or laying there pretending to be asleep.
  2. For a while, Matthias thought that Kaz looked especially pissed off while he was studying, which would make sense. But then he realized how close he would tilt his books towards his face, and he realized that maybe not all of his squinting was an attempt to unsettle people.
  3. He tended not to wear the gloves while he was just in their room, which made it plainly obvious that he had no idea what to do with his hands most of the time. Kaz, Matthias learned, was a _huge_ fidgeter. He tapped pens against the desk, absentmindedly drummed with his fingers, and sometimes just wriggled his fingers around.



* * *

Hands down, the best part about getting Rotty was watching as Kaz, who barely slept on a normal night, tried to wake himself up after a solid ten hours of sleep. He couldn’t decide if the cutest part was the way his hair stuck up at odd angles or how he kept blinking to get the last bits of sleep out of his eyes.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Matthias said, rotating his chair around slowly, “Did you sleep well?”

“Shut up,” Kaz mumbled as he rubbed his eyes. At that point, Rotty finally shifted and jumped out of bed, padding over to Matthias and looking up at him with large, begging eyes.

He shook out some of the kibble as Kaz slowly rose, grimacing at the stiffness in his bad leg. He really,  _ really  _ must not have been used to actually getting a healthy amount of sleep.

“So, I just texted Nina that you’re awake, which means she should be down here soon to see-”

At that moment, there was a sudden, insistent pounding on the door. When Matthias opened it, Inej stepped in gracefully, followed by a panting Nina who practically fell over the threshold. Rotty looked up from his breakfast, noticed the new people, and hurried over as pellets of food fell out of his mouth.

Nina threw herself on the poor dog.

“It has been  _ so long  _ since I’ve seen a dog, oh my God, how did this happen and why do you have a dog and how did you get a picture of the world’s biggest insomniac sleeping and-” Inej finally elbowed her, causing her girlfriend to resume panting. “Okay, sorry, but seriously. Where did the dog come from?”

Kaz gave Matthias a look that definitely meant “you explain it”, but Matthias shot it right back. 

No one spoke for a minute.

“Really, Kaz, you can’t explain why you suddenly have a dog?” Matthias said.

Kaz just buried his head in his hands and groaned, still not fully awake. “ _ Fine _ . Anders said I needed companionship. So I met with Haskell and I kind of unleashed the dirt I have, so they let me go through with it.”

“So  _ that’s  _ where you’ve been sneaking off to!” Nina said, still wrapped around Rotty. “See, we thought you were going on some kind of hot date, but-”

At that moment, the door flew open, Jesper yelled, “DOGGO!”, and he tackled Nina for possession of the dog. Behind him stood a flustered Wylan and Kuwei, who bounced on his feet as if excited at the thought of petting Rotty but unwilling to fight the two currently hogging him.

Wylan took a few steps around the dog cuddle pile and stood next to Inej, who stood with her arms crossed, disapproving. “Not a dog person either?” she asked, and he responded with a slight nod.

“My stepmother’s dogs were the tiny, yappy sort. They never shut up. And then one of them peed on my flute case, so they ruined the whole species for me.” 

From the floor, Jesper winced. “Babe, you don’t know what you’re missing. I forgot how calming a dog hug could be.”

Kaz tilted his head. “Did yours-?”

“Yeah. A year or so after you… yeah. I think it was just short of two years? It was around the time we stopped fostering, so. Um.”

Matthias cleared his throat to end that little ramble. “So, who wants to join us for a walk?” Everyone shot up except Kaz, who started to slowly lift himself off his bed. Matthias just pointed at him and shook his head. “Not you. Not when you’re hurting too much.”

Kaz raised his eyebrows, but didn’t question him.

When Matthias returned, Kaz was sitting at his desk with his leg stretched out and resting on some sort of milk crate, reading out of a textbook (African history, maybe?). From his profile, Matthias could tell there was  _ something  _ wrong based on the way his eyes seemed half-lidded, brows drawn close together; knuckles of one hand digging into his temple.

“Hey, Kaz, everything all right?” No response. “Um, are you doing okay there?”

Kaz just groaned, slumped forward, and rested his head in his forearms. “Fuck colonization.”

Definitely African history.

“I mean, did you really expect anything else-?” Matthias paused when he lifted his head. He saw the way his eyes fluttered for a second, attempting to focus, and ended up somewhere between his neutral expression and the “oh-shit-run-away” expression. Suddenly, he had a revelation.

“Hey, when was the last time you got your eyes checked?”

Once again, there was no response. Just a shift that sent his expression slightly more into confusion.

“Come on, just humor me.”

“I think it was right around when I started living with my mom again? So… around six years ago. Why do you ask?”

At that point, Matthias finally shut the door and leaned against it, once again pulling out his Big Brother Look (it needed work; the fact that he brought it out so much meant it wasn’t as effective as it used to be. Then again, it had been several years since he’d  _ been  _ a big brother, so-). “So, did anyone ever tell you that look extra pissed off when you’re reading?”

Kaz gave him a blank look.

“Do you remember that time in Early American History last year when the professor thought you hated the class and you did none of the readings because you were always either asleep in class or looking like you’d kill her if she mentioned Columbus one more time?”

Another blank stare. How could he not figure out where he was going with this?

“Really, Kaz, how much of your super cool badass aesthetic comes from the fact that you’re blind as fuck?”

“I can see,” he huffed. Finally, a response.

“Really. What does that say?” Matthias pointed at the sizeable whiteboard that sat above his bed. A few days ago, Nina had written MERR CHRISMAS in huge block letters, so it should have been easily readable from across the room. (He’d asked her why she’d decided on something about Christmas when she was ‘the token Jew’. She’d just laughed and added more Christmas doodles to it.)

Keywords,  _ should have been _ .

Kaz gave the trademark “scheming face” as he tried to read it. A moment later he opened his mouth, but Matthias cut him off.

“Unless you were about to say ‘merr chrismas’, you’re wrong.”

“I was just going to say that.”

“Lies.”

Kaz slumped, absently spinning the chair the slightest bit. “Fine, maybe I can’t see very well. Why does this matter?”

_ Why does this matter _ . Oh, God, Matthias was about to slap him. “I’m… I’m not even going to answer such a stupid question. So, we are going to Walmart, you’re going to get an eye exam and glasses, and you will be so much less grumpy. Deal?”

He just looked down and scratched Rotty’s ear. “Do I have a choice?”

“Absolutely not.”

His vision screening turned out terrible, unsurprisingly. The doctor looked at his results and asked, “How did you make it this far without glasses?” Kaz had just shrugged in response. He picked out a pair of thin, wire-rimmed black frames that Matthias had to admit looked pretty cute on him.

Not that he was looking that closely, of course.

* * *

 

When they picked up the glasses around a week later, Matthias was amazed at how neutral Kaz’s resting expression became. Before, he’d had severe Resting Bitchface; now, without a lot of the squinting and tension resulting from it, he looked… far more pleasant, to say the least.

And then they arrived at dinner and Nina practically fell out of her chair and Jesper fought to not choke on his soda.

“Oh my God, that explains so  _ much _ .”

“Were you really just blind this whole time?”

“HOLY SHIT HE LOOKS REALLY CUTE WITH GLASSES.” 

(That was Kuwei. Jesper, once again, fought to not choke on his soda. He decided it was time to try to stop drinking because he’d probably not survive dinner if he did.) 

Matthias found himself explaining his the series of observations that led to the conclusion that Kaz actually just had horrible vision. In the middle of his story, though, Inej’s eyes got really wide, she finished chewing, and then buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook.

Nina, in the middle of making some sort of smart comment, stopped the moment she noticed any signs of distress in her girlfriend. “Inej, are you okay?” Her hands hovered near her shoulders, unwilling to get closer. It was a habit that had become ingrained very quickly; sometimes, when she wasn’t all there, touch could set her off.

It got silent at the table. In the quiet, Matthias thought he could hear her crying, but-

That wasn’t crying.

“Oh my god, I just- I just realized,” Inej said, lifting her head. Her eyes were teary, yes, but it was clear that she was  _ laughing _ . It took her a second to collect herself, and then she said, “I just realized that Matthias is the mom friend. This whole time, I’ve been trying to figure out who it was, but I just had a revelation.” She shook her head, still giggling.

Nina also shook her head, pouted, and punched her shoulder. 

“I don’t understand. How is Matthias the… mom?” Kuwei asked, still looking concerned. It was adorable.

As Inej filled him in on the ubiquity of the mom friend, and Wylan and Nina launched into a long discussion on who the dad friend was, Matthias stole a glance at his left, where Kaz sat, the slightest hint of a grin on his face.

Progress.

Or maybe not  _ that  _ much progress, because a few days later Kaz stumbled into their room, lenses scratched, bleeding slightly from the side of his neck. 

Rotty, who had been curled up at Matthias’s feet while he worked on his statistics homework, lept up when he heard the door. Over the short time they’d known each other, those two had bonded enough that Rotty always got anxious when Kaz went to his night class. Thankfully, all of his other professors allowed Rotty to accompany him, but his literature professor had a severe dog allergy, so it was probably not a good idea to have a dog in the classroom.

“Hey,” Matthias said without looking up, drowning in z-scores. Kaz brushed past him, muttering a slight greeting. Matthias heard him digging through his stuff, so he turned around.

Which is when he saw the blood, which he was trying- and failing- to contain with the help of a pack of tissues.

“Oh my god, what happened?”

There was a dangerous gleam in Kaz’s eyes when he said, “After class, I had to get something out of my bag, so I had my cane leaning against the wall outside. Some guy thought it would be funny to grab it.”

“Oh no.”

“He was saying something about that and Rotty-” the dog in question looked up with wide, begging eyes, so Kaz reached down and scratched him- “so I confronted him. He patted my shoulder. I took his wrist and, I-”

“You didn’t.”

At that point, he slid down, sitting on his bed. Rotty jumped up beside him and nudged himself closer. “I didn’t break it. Just twisted enough that it hurt and will probably bruise. He was all offended, said I was taking things too seriously and he was just kidding. So I hit him on the shoulder with the cane, and he backed down, but I guess his girlfriend was nearby? And she had really sharp nails. Hence-” he gestured to the scratches on his face and neck. Finished talking, he resumed holding a tissue up to the wounds, which were soaking through quickly.

“Let me help with that,” Matthias said, reaching for the first aid kit he kept under his desk. When Kaz just stared at him (really; he needed to start charging him for every blank look), he added, “Look, I’ve been in plenty of fights in my lifetime. I know how to clean up pretty well. Also, I have bandaids.”

Kaz opened his mouth to protest, but common sense must have won out because he said, “Fine. Just… cover your hands somehow.”

That ended up being the hardest part, as Kaz’s gloves were far too small for Matthias’s hands, and he didn’t really have anything else that would allow for mobility. Eventually, he just ended up pinching paper towels between and his fingers and using that to touch him when needed.

He worked gingerly, applying only light touches as he cleaned and covered the cuts. There was the slightest flinch when he got close, a breath taken in too quickly and held just the slightest bit to be normal. Still, it was nothing like the full-body shudder he’d felt that night that was now a little over a month ago.

The other thing Matthias noticed was how tense Kaz was. His muscles seemed especially taut, teeth clenched. It was then that Matthias really thought about the fact that all Kaz had had to show for the fight was a few scratches and the beginnings of a bruise on his cheeks. Obviously it wasn’t a serious incident if the staff clearly didn’t know about it. It meant he’d  _ stopped _ . Which was good because it showed control, but bad because he’d clearly been using the fights as a way to get the stress out. 

“We need to find you a hobby,” Matthias said as he finished placing the last band-aid. 

And, at that very moment, the idea came to him. 

* * *

Matthias

Okay so I need help guys

(23:12)

 

_ jazz hands _

whatever it is bro i got u

(23:13)

 

Matthias

So I think we all know that Kaz has horrible coping mechanisms

(23:15)

And I think the rest of us are slightly better??

(23:16)

So we should have like. Babysitting days.

Where we try to show him what we do that helps

(23:18)

You know what I’m saying? 

(23:19)

 

_ kb  _

i’m right here and i will throw something at you

(23:20)

 

Matthias

Shut up, you were open to the idea five minutes ago 

(23:21)

 

**queena**

KNITTING TIME WITH MAMA NINA

(23:24)

I LOVE IT

(23:25)

 

**_Kool-aid_ **

Yes

(23:25)

 

_ jazz hands _

THIS IS A YES FROM BOTH OF US BC WYLAN’S TOO LAZY TO TALK TO HIS PHONE

(23:27)

ALSO I (JESPER) CALL FIRST

(23:28)

 

Inej

Good idea!

(23:29)

 

_ kb  _

i hate all of you

(23:32)

 

_ jazz hands _

*love <3

(23:36)

 

_ kb _

i will break your phone

(23:37)

or your face

(23:39)

or both 

(23:40)

 

_ jazz hands _

<3

(23:41)

 

**queena**

u can’t hate us mate <3 <3 <3

(23:44)

 

_ kb has left the group _

(23:44)

 

Inej

Just wait. He’ll be back

(23:46)

 

_ Matthias added kb to the group _

(23:50)

 

Matthias

I will add you every time you leave, so don’t even try it

(23:55)

 

_ kb  _

F I N E

(23:57)

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year everyone! hopefully 2017 is kinder to us all than 2016 was. i hope everything is better and you all have a wonderful time this year <3


	3. you outshine the morning sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this one requires a little bit of color guard background! color guard, for those of you who don't know, is the visual aspect of a marching band. they usually use flags or weapons to add a dance-like element to the music. [this is a good example!](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcmkh0rTlt1qm56rno3_500.gif)
> 
> jesper specializes in rifles, which are usually made of wood or plastic and hurt like hell if you get hit with them. [they usually look something like this.](http://dshowcase.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Elite-4-BBNS-846x846.jpg) as for the basics kaz learns in this chapter, [the spin in this gif is a double-handed butterfly on flag](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/31/02/e3/3102e320317773ecfbed5c990ecd0e6f.gif), [ this gif is a really good example of saber drop spins,](https://68.media.tumblr.com/0d270326ae48aaf97a1cfea0ae2ad9c8/tumblr_nsopwsNRZt1s6ayelo1_500.gif) and [this gif is a pretty standard, basic rifle toss](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/f3/20/22/f320228b3eff40626b4f008bb254d6f8.gif). if you guys have any questions about guard, feel free to ask me! it's kind of my life.

“So, how have you been feeling?”

Dr. Anders sat with a quiet smile, her blonde hair pulled into a ponytail today. Like normal, her legs were crossed with her usual clipboard perched on her knee. She looked refreshed, just the slightest bit less tired than normal. Apparently her week-long vacation had done her well.

“I think I’m feeling better, a little bit.”

“Good! That’s great!” she said, her voice peppy as she scribbled something on her clipboard. “So last time, we ran out of time to discuss your ESA. Can you tell me about your dog?”

“He’s a rottweiler, around six years old… the previous owner named him Rotty, which is ridiculous, but I think he’s been helpful. I’ve been sleeping better, at least.” Better, in this case, meant sleeping at all. Before, there had been nights where sleep just didn’t happen. Now, he usually managed to drift off at least a little bit.

She tilted her head. “Rotty, did you say? Does he happen to be fairly large, mostly black? Sometimes turns the lights on and off for no reason?”

“How did you know?”

Anders have a quiet laugh. Her smile was bright, comforting. “His old owner was a family friend. She had issues ever since she came home from the war a few years ago, and she was always talking about how Rotty helped her feel better. Only gave him up because she had no family and wasn’t able to care for him anymore.” She grinned at him. “You got very lucky. He’s a treasure.”

Kaz nodded. Rotty was a comfort, for sure. Having such a large dog usually made people keep a safe distance away, even though he was pretty sure Rotty would never attack someone. That, coupled with the fact that he’d somehow picked up on his touch aversion very quickly and now tended to growl very softly if anyone got too close, made Rotty an excellent fit. Besides, having a warm weight beside him tended to keep his mind cemented in the present. 

Anders was right. Rotty was a treasure.

“So, do you know what you’re doing for the winter break yet?”

He tilted his head in response. “Going home?” When she didn’t respond, he added, “Am I still not safe to be alone?”

For a moment, she was silent while she glanced at her notes. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

_ Don’t lie to her. Brick by brick. Get through this. _

“I don’t feel like killing myself anymore, if that’s what you’re asking.” He almost didn’t recognize his voice with how soft it was. “I feel a long way from okay, but I just… don’t have the motivation anymore. It’s not a pressing need. Just a… just a background thought.”

Very slowly, she shuffled a paper, looked up, and nodded. He must have said something right. 

( _ Accurate _ , a voice in his head said.  _ There’s no right answer. But you didn’t lie. _ )

“I think that’s very good, compared to how you were a month ago.” Again, she looked down at the paper she’d pulled out. “My colleague at the hospital said you have some bipolar tendencies, correct? My hypothesis is that your suicidal urges-”  _ god _ it was weird when she said it like that, put a name to how he felt- “come mostly when you find yourself edging closer to mania. Currently, you’re definitely in a more depressive swing. That would explain the lack of motivation. What do you think?”

“I know last time this happened, I-”

Shit. He’d told himself not to bring that out, not after it had slipped out at the hospital in a conversation he barely remembered.

“Last time?” 

She edged closer in her seat, eyes blown wide. 

He didn’t want to tell her. Not about that.

But again. Brick by brick. Step by step towards something resembling normal.

He took a breath.

“When I was fifteen, I ruined my mother’s life…”

* * *

 

“So, this is Pablo. Say hi to Pablo. Pablo’s my best friend, and shortly, he will be yours too.”

“Pablo” was a rifle, dented heavily on one side, wrapped with so many layers of electrical tape that it bulged at odd areas. The bolt was nearly detached; the only thing holding it together was a strip of yellow tape. 

In short, it was hideous.

Regardless, it was Jesper’s pride and joy.

“Come on, Kaz. You’re not too cool for this. You’ve got to respect the rifle or it’ll hit you in the face. And trust me, that  _ hurts. _ ”

“Fine. Hi Pablo.”

He still remembered the day Jesper had gotten Pablo. The Faheys usually didn’t do much for Christmas because money was relatively tight, and holidays in general got a bit weird when you were fostering. Still, Colm had gotten Jesper a rifle that immediately had been named Pablo. Jesper had been overjoyed. Despite the thin layer of slush-snow on the ground, he’d run outside and spun the thing until his arms were bruised for weeks. Kaz remembered standing outside with him, laughing as Jesper did toss after toss until his wrists gave out and Kaz had to lend him his best ice pack just to get feeling back in his wrist.

The other gift that morning was Kaz’s first cane, which he still used even though it was starting to wear out. Something about it reminded him of, well…  _ Home  _ was the first word that came to his mind, but  _ home  _ was an abandoned farm in Vietnam. He didn’t want to think about that anymore. So  _ home  _ was a concept that he’d banished from his mind.

Speaking of banishing things from his mind, he really didn’t want to ever have to see Jesper’s current outfit again. The boy wore lime green sweatpants and a strange, striped yellow long-sleeve shirt, with his normal fingerless black gloves. It was not a flattering look, but it was so  _ Jesper _ that it was almost okay.

“So, now that we’ve gotten introductions squared away, I’m actually going to introduce you to Eugene.” With that, he tossed another rifle at Kaz. This one was actually intact, bearing a shiny, fresh tape job. “Eugene is yours for this hour. Also, these are your gloves. I know they’re not as cool as the ones you already have, but you can’t spin in those. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.” 

The new gloves were stiff and made of some material that seemed close to leather, but not quite. They were strangely padded on the palm, which made wriggling his fingers around feel very odd. 

“So you’re probably wondering why I decided to show you how to spin. Well, it’s very simple. Whenever I get jumpy and I can’t focus, I tend to come out here, throw Pablo around for a while, and it really helps me for some reason? So I thought having a way to burn off some of the extra energy might be good.”

“I already knew that,” Kaz said, voice flat.

Jesper, who had been gesturing around wildly with the rifle tucked under his arm, suddenly stopped in his grandiose movements. His mouth hung open for a moment before he said, “Oh. That’s right. I forgot.”

Kaz cocked his head to the side. “Did you really forget we lived together for months?”

He started swaying again, which made it very difficult to focus on his actual words. “Okay, no, I didn’t  _ forget _ , but I really don’t remember that time very much? You know, I didn’t have my meds yet, and when you left… I just didn’t want to think about how much I missed you. So I guess I kind of blocked it out.”

Huh. So they were both very good at blocking out whatever they didn’t want to think about. That was certainly interesting. 

“It was nice. Being with you guys,” Kaz said, his voice soft, and he was suddenly very aware that he didn’t  _ want  _ to say that and, even though it was true, it was a hint of vulnerability he really wasn’t ready to admit yet. But there it was, laid out for Jesper to see.

And Jesper just gaped.

“Wow, okay, are you just saying that you  _ liked  _ being part of our little dysfunctional family? Oh my god, just. Just give me a moment. Pablo, carry me. I can’t take this.”

Because, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, living with the Faheys had felt like having a  _ family  _ again. Maybe it was because he was used to having a father, an older brother, and an old dog that got easily confused. Being with his mother and her rich, American boyfriend had just screamed  _ wrong wrong wrong _ , and the foster homes after her had been either distant or trying too hard. He started to be known as a ‘trouble child’ because he’d entered the system late, he wasn’t American to begin with, his English still wasn’t great, and he got moody and slightly violent easily. So some parents just gave up when he got too difficult and he’d be transferred. Others tried  _ too  _ hard to fix him, to show the poor Vietnamese kid how to “love” and “feel happy” again, as they told their friends how much progress they were making with the child they were fostering. And then he’d go out and get into a fight or behave a little too recklessly and he’d be transferred. And the cycle repeated.

But he’d found something good with the Faheys. And then some kids were making fun of Jesper, threatening him, and he couldn’t  _ not  _ intervene. He was transferred a few days later.

And the cycle repeated until he’d clawed his way out of the system legally and got a little apartment in a city known for its shady slums while he finished high school. On a whim he’d enrolled in college as a last-ditch effort to give his life meaning, or at the very least give him a reason to keep living.

“... so, you know, going out here and kind of burning off my extra energy has always helped and, you know, I figured everyone could use some kind of vaguely violent stress reliever? And, I mean, there’s nothing more badass than throwing a gun around, so…”

“So, show me how you do it,” Kaz said, cutting off Jesper’s rant that was about to cycle back to the beginning. Again, Jesper gaped.

“Okay, so the first thing you need to know is how to hold it. Your right hand goes here-” he wrapped it around the neck, palm facing up- “and your left goes here-” which was on the neck, palm facing down. “This is for stability. We call it right flat. So from here, I guess I’ll show you butterflies first, and then we circle around to drop spins and then a basic toss? That’s really all you need to know to begin.”

Butterflies, as he turned them, turned out to be  _ very  _ awkward, what with trying to coordinate turning his wrist to move most of the rifle and then incorporating only the slightest of arm movements to finish the rotations. More often than not, he over- or under-rotated and ended up hitting himself. And then, once he got that, it was a matter of  _ reversing  _ the movement to do an underhand.

“Great, you’ve got the basic motion. So there’s all sorts of variants we could get into, but I’ll save that for later. All right, so when you do a drop spin, you just flip the rifle a little bit and catch it in the same position so you can go on.” Kaz tried to do so, and the thing flew in the air and ended up hitting his feet. “No, you did it too hard. You just kind of let the rifle roll around your hand.” Jesper demonstrated, and the rifle did a smooth flip until it was exactly the same as before.

Oh boy. This would be tough.

Tosses also were just…. Not a thing. He caught one, somehow, and his palms ached from the force of it despite the cushioning of the gloves.

“Great! You picked up fast!” Jesper said in his overly peppy captain-teaching-the-newbies voice. Still, despite the vague condescension, Kaz did feel  _ good _ . He had learned quickly, and even though his moves were rough, he had the basics. “So the real reason you learn the basics is so you can put them to a song and just kind of… move. Writing routines like that is by far the easiest way for me to destress. Like this!”

He turned on “My Shot” from Hamilton and launched into a fast paced, intense routine. At times, the rifle blurred in Jesper’s hands because of the rapid fire spins and high tosses that seemed impossible to catch. When he finished, kneeling on the ground after catching a toss that must have rotated at least three times, Jesper was sweaty despite the bitter chill and absolutely  _ beaming. _

Awkwardly, Kaz clapped. It was impressive. He’d seen some of Jesper’s routines back in high school, where he’d forget his moves in the middle or go for a toss that was far too high and he’d hit himself in the head instead of catching it. This? Was on a completely different level. 

“So now it’s your turn. Pick a song, and just try to make something up. I’ve been working on that since I first heard the song, so don’t worry about making it look good.” There was a gleam in Jesper’s eyes that showed he really,  _ really  _ cared about what he was talking about. “Just concentrate on how the music makes you feel, and use the rifle to express that.”

Jesper ended up picking the song for him because Kaz didn’t recognize a single song on Jesper’s phone. The beginning was rough. With only three moves at his disposal, it was hard to fill up the song so he ended up repeating the same combination frequently. At first, he spent a lot of time just standing there, worrying about how bad he looked and trying to figure out what fit best with the music.

Then, sometime around halfway through the song, he gave up thinking. He just  _ moved _ . And before he knew it, it was over.

Jesper, again, was beaming as he applauded. “That was really something! How do you feel?”

“Tired.” That wasn’t an exaggeration. His leg throbbed and his arms burned from moving a heavy object. But there was a buzzing feeling in his muscles, a sort of lightness that he hadn’t felt for a while. “But good.”

“So, if you ever need to burn off some stress, you can just let me know and I’ll bring Pablo over and you guys can work it out together. Or, I figure you’ve always got your cane with you, and it’s similar enough, so why not throw it around a bit?” 

“I might take you up on that sometime,” he said as he handed the borrowed rifle and gloves back. Jesper nodded, his smile falling for a moment as his eyes grew slightly wide.

“What are you doing over break?” he asked, sounding concerned.

“I was planning on just going home, but…”  _ you can do this, you  _ should  _ do this, it’ll be good for you,  _ “Do you think I could stay with you?”

“Oh my god,” Jesper said. “Oh my god. I wish I could hug you right now.  _ Yes,  _ of course! I was just about to ask you; Dad has been bugging me for weeks now about asking you. Oh man, Alina’s gonna be so excited to meet you! You’ll love her. She’s adorable!”

As they walked back towards his dorm, he thought about how he was starting to get back the only family he’d had since the hurricane.

Thanks, Anders.

* * *

 

Going home with Jesper meant putting up with three hours of his loud, off key singing to Hamilton while his battered pickup truck groaned with every bump in the road, but Kaz didn’t really mind. He was, for the first time in a long time,  _ excited.  _ The minute he opened the door he was greeted by a small girl who immediately wrapped her arms around his legs. 

“Alina,” said a stern voice behind her. There was Colm Fahey in the doorway, giving him a soft smile. “What did I say about touching our guest?”

“You said I’m not supposed to spread my fairy magic because he already has too much,” she said sadly, backing away. “But he looked like he needed a hug!”

Kaz knelt down so he was closer to eye-level with her. “You were fine this time, but just be careful. You’ve got so much fairy magic that if you hug me, I might just get too much, and that would be bad. Your name’s Alina, right little fairy?”

She nodded profusely. “My name’s Alina and I’m a sun fairy! And you’re my new big brother!”

“That’s right! My name’s Kaz. I’m a better big brother than Jesper is.”

“Um, I take personal offense to that. Everyone knows I’m better than this idiot. Right, Alina?”

She stuck out her tongue. “Nope. I like Kaz better.”

“Okay, I’m leaving. Bye guys.”

It was later, after Alina had gone to bed, that he got the chance to actually talk to Colm. Jesper had also gone to bed already, claiming that driving always made him tired. Kaz knew he was just trying to get the two of them to talk, but he went along with it anyway.

“You told her about me already?”

Colm, in response, simply shrugged as he took a sip of hot chocolate. “Jesper told me that a lot hadn’t changed since you were here before, so I figured warning her ahead of time would be for the best. Besides, she’s been obsessed with the whole sun fairy thing for months now, so I figure it’ll stimulate her imagination even more.”

“It’s good to be back here,” Kaz murmured after a moment, looking down into the cocoa.

“I was worried about you,” Colm said, and Kaz looked up to meet the man’s eyes. They were wide, almost teary in the corners. “I’m glad you came home after all these years.”

_ Home _ . 

He’d been pushing the word away for years, but...

Home wasn’t the dingy apartment he rented above a shady butcher’s shop.

For once, he realized that maybe home wasn’t just the place where he’d grown up.

Or, rather, that didn’t have to be his only home.

 

He was finally back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jesper's rifle name may or may not be based on my own. oops.
> 
> next up is nina! fun knitting times await.


	4. show me where the armor ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the tags for eating disorder and drug abuse refer to this chapter. both are fairly minor and are only briefly discussed so it's a pretty mild trigger, but just be warned. they come up in the paragraph that beings "anyway, so sometime..." and end at "... mind to handle"

Winter break flew by in a flurry of activity, which was a welcome change from normal. Holidays for foster kids were weird at best; once he’d gotten out, he celebrated Christmas by drinking an extra cup of coffee, eating Chinese food, and trying to actually sleep. This was different.

It seemed there was always something going on in the Fahey household. Sometimes it was Jesper going out to meet old friends and dragging Kaz along just to say, “Remember that awkward kid we had for a while? Well, LOOK HOW HOT HE GOT!” If not, it was distant family stopping by, usually to meet Alina but also to check on Jesper and then see Kaz standing there in the background, at which point they’d go, “I remember you!” and then surge forward for a hug, which was usually the point where he’d back away until Jesper intercepted. By the time the last relative stopped by, they had a system complete with a signal, because it turned out most of the family were huggers.

On calmer days where there were no big reunions, he usually got dragged into doing something with Alina. Activities ranged from accompanying her on a walk with Rotty to acting as the lost prince that she, the queen sun fairy, was tasked to rescue in order to unite her kingdom with the human world. After he braided her hair one night he became her default hairdresser.

(Jesper had just given him a Look when he offered to braid her hair, but Kaz had ignored him and did a slightly messy, offcentered French braid because he hadn’t done it for years.

“There was a little girl in the one home I stayed in. She always wanted her hair braided but the parents weren’t around much, so I learned. It always calmed her down.”

Jesper had just stared for a while, and then walked away for a few minutes to try to process what he’d just heard.)

Especially when relatives were around, there was a lot going on. Sometimes it got loud; at least, louder than the quiet dorm he’d gotten used to. There were days where it became too much and he had to lock himself in the guest room and huddle with Rotty to get past the noise, but that was rare. For a week straight, he managed five hours of sleep without nightmares. And he only had one panic attack, which came out of the first hug from a well-meaning grandmother. Colm had immediately steered her away, and Alina had buzzed around to try to make him feel better.

It was enough.

But it flew by, and the next thing he knew he was replacing the few things he’d brought back in his drawer while Rotty curled up under the desk. Rotty, apparently, really liked car rides. He’d sat alert the whole time, staring out the window and getting excited every time he saw another dog.

Matthias stumbled in an hour later, all of his belongings somehow either slung across his body or in his arms. The moment he crossed the threshold, he threw everything on the ground, slammed the door shut, and sank down into a chair.

“I don’t know how I used to survive living with my grandparents,” he said, fingers running through his hair. “I just put up with a month of racism and sexism and pretty much every type of bigotry that exists. I just… cannot do that anymore.”

Kaz cocked an eyebrow at him. “It sucks, doesn’t it?”

In response, Matthias leaned back and hit his head against the wall. “I know it sucks more when it’s directed at you, but _god_.”

“Did you say anything to him?”

“Of course I did, but that man doesn’t listen. And my grandmother just sat back and didn’t say anything but just silently disapproved of me.” He looked over, just then noticing Rotty. “Hey, can you go bite some legs off?”

Rotty just looked up from his nap, blinked at Matthias, and went back to sleep. “I think he’s telling you to fight your own battles,” Kaz said, reaching down to scratch his ear. “Isn’t that right?” Rotty didn’t bother to respond to that one, but he knew he was right.

“It would be so much easier if I could just hit a switch and be disconnected from them,” Matthias said after a few seconds, head still tilted back and leaning against the wall. “I wish I could just not go home and be able to pay for school on my own, but no. Of course that’s not possible.”

This was the sort of situation where Kaz was lost when it came to people. He knew, rationally, that he _should_ try to make Matthias feel better somehow, but he had nothing to say. The first two thoughts that came to his head were, “just kill him” and “steal his money and never go home again.” Both were highly impractical solutions.

So he just tried to rearrange his face into something roughly remembering sympathy and said, stiff, “I’m sorry. That would be ideal.”

Matthias just gave him an odd look but nodded after a few seconds. “You know, I’ve never seriously considered murder before. But… I think you might be rubbing off on me.”

 

* * *

 

The roof of the dining hall leaked. It was a well-documented phenomenon, reported to maintenance several times each year and fixed with a large bucket placed under the worst leaks. And, for some bizarre reason that Kaz never understood, the table that Nina claimed was theirs sat right under one of those huge leaks.

“It adds ambiance,” she said, stirring crackers into her soup. “I relate to this leaky roof on a spiritual level.”

“Your spirit might need some help then,” Matthias said, absentmindedly twirling noodles around his fork. Nina held up her arm as she was about to say something in response, but Inej grabbed her hand and squeezed it before she could say anything.

Their table of choice was one of the few circular ones in the dining hall, squeezed into a corner and barely large enough for the seven of them (and Nina and Matthias probably counted as a person and a half, so more like eight people). Yet. It was _their_ table. Being anywhere else felt weird.

Currently, Jesper was sitting back in his chair, legs splayed wide to accommodate for the extra space that came from Wylan and Kuwei being at some science exhibition thing. Despite his claims that Kuwei ‘wasn’t even that good at science’, he’d managed to impress their chemistry professor enough that he’d been selected as part of the group going to see some fancy science fair or something. “It’s like the old days,” Jepser said. “Just the five of us. Dream team back again.”

He did have a point, in a way. At the beginning of the year last year Kaz had only known Jesper, both from past experience and the fact that they were rooming together. Jesper had known Inej from the week of color guard she’d done before dropping out to focus on gymnastics, and Inej was rooming with Nina, so she followed along. That, coupled with the incident that led to Kaz meeting the both of them, made the four of them close pretty quickly. And then Nina had asked out Matthias, who she’d been admiring from afar for weeks in her religion class, and they’d become five for a while.

But then Jesper fucked up a toss and hit the cute flautist in the line next to him and then managed to take the blushing kid on a date, and suddenly Wylan came along. And Nina and Kuwei had to work together on a project in Physics, and then the last member of their little crew joined.

Still, it was weird to just have the five of them again. Even though Wylan and Kuwei were both fairly quiet sometimes, there seemed to be a strange silence coming from half of the table. When Jesper got up to throw his trash away, the only sound was a faint drumming sound coming from-

Oh. That was Kaz.

Absently, his fingers were tapping against the table, far louder than he’d realized. He noticed at the same time Nina did, apparently; she was staring at his hand as well.

“I didn’t realize-”

“You don’t have any classes in the afternoon, do you?”

She was squinting her left eye and leaning towards him, which was the Nina Zenik version of “scheming face.”

“No?”

“Okay, well, I’m gonna pretend Early American doesn’t exist and take my day today.”

He started to protest, saying that he was fine and she didn’t _need_ to do “her day” or whatever they were calling it, and that Early American was actually a really good class anyway there was a lot of interesting stuff in it, but she just glared, pointed at him, and said, “No. Decision final. No refunds.”

Kaz looked over at Matthias, hoping he’d back him up, but Matthias simply said, “If you’d ask Rotty what to do right now, he’d probably say he wants you to fight your own battles.”

Asshole.

When Jesper came back to the table, Kaz and Nina were both glaring at each other, Inej was taking pictures on her phone, and Matthias was laughing contentedly at himself.

“It’s great to know I didn’t miss anything.”

 

* * *

 

When Nina pushed the button for the elevator and it _actually arrived_ , she almost cried in relief. Even though the elevator in the Crow Club was slightly more reliable than the ones everywhere else on campus, it was still a miracle for it to actually show up and for the doors to actually open. Some students had taken to using a crowbar to get it open, which was obviously very frowned upon by administration.

It wasn’t a big deal, for once; Kaz’s leg was actually not feeling bad, which was unusual for the rain. Maybe it was the fact that it was warm enough to rain and not snow. Still, taking three flights of steps up to her dorm room didn’t really sound pleasant.

Rotty went a little crazy once Nina opened the door. She’d insisted on taking him along, even though it probably wasn’t necessary. He ran right for Nina’s (open) closet, sniffed a bunch of her clothes, and then laid down on a pile of sweaters and rolled around a little bit.

“Oh, right. The cats. I forgot about that. Guess I’ll be pulling dog hair out of all my clothes now.”

“You’re the one who wanted to bring him along. It’s no one’s fault but yours.”

Nina tapped him with one of her needles. “Shush. I’m your teacher for the next hour or so. No back talking.” She pointed the sharp end at him, waving it up and down slightly. “I have potential instruments of torture, if there would be a necessity. So there’s no sassing. Got it?”

Kaz nodded because, okay, Nina Zenik holding knitting needles and giving you her best death stare was surprisingly scary.

“Good, good. So, in preparation for today, I got you a present.” She threw a plastic bag at him, containing a set of large needles and black yarn. “I know you have this whole aesthetic going on, so I got some of your favorite color.” By ‘got’, she definitely meant she raided her grandmother’s closet for some ancient yarn that hadn’t been touched for years.

“You’re really going to show me how to knit?” For that, he received another tap with a needle.

“Hey, don’t diss it. Knitting is very good for stress. Believe me, there’s no way I would have gotten through these past few years without it.” She shook her head, sending black curls flying at his face. “I think I made three scarves and a sweater in the week after I broke up with Matthias. Trust me, it worked.”

He didn’t really understand how that worked, but fine. He’d humor her.

Nina showed him how to cast on, how to do basic stitches. Controlling two needles at the same time, Kaz decided, was impossible. One hand would slip or move in the wrong direction, and then he’d have fucked up the whole row and had to start again.

“Just slow down,” Nina said, already starting her second row while Kaz pulled his off to start again. “Also, clean your glasses. Maybe then you’ll see better.”

That did help, slightly, but he was still not pulling the needle through all the way and ripping the yarn. Or, he was wrapping the yarn the wrong way and not actually doing a stitch.

When he tried six times to tie a slipknot and failed each time, he threw the rapidly fraying yarn and the needles on the desk. “This is impossible. I don’t see how this is supposed to help at all.”

What he hated was how frustrated he felt. Kaz didn’t usually get frustrated. When he taught himself card tricks, he’d repeated them over and over again until he finally understood. Sure, he’d feel a bit angry that he couldn’t get the flip right or he wasn’t quite mastering the sleight of hand required, but it was only a dull sense that just made him want to keep trying. Now? His hands were curled into fists, he was biting the inside of his lip, and he _shook_ in an effort to keep himself still and composed.

“Hey, it’s okay. No one’s good at knitting in the beginning.” Nina set her needles down gently and scooched closer to him. “Do you want to know how I learned to knit?”

He looked over at her. “I thought you said your grandmother taught you.”

She smiled, small; the corners of her dark red lips turned up but her eyes seemed somehow distant. “She tried to teach me, but I never could quite get it right. I’d do a few stitches and then give up, and that was the end of that.” She took a deep breath and fixed her eyes on him. “When I was in middle school, I fell into this weird funk. It was nothing that anyone said to me or anything that anyone did, but I just felt _wrong_ in my body.

“I still don’t know why it happened. I was big then, too, but I was still confident and happy and I had so many friends. My moms were so supportive, too! But I just couldn’t shake this weird feeling. So I kept going for a few years, thinking that if I ignored it it would go away.” Again, she shook her head, this time smaller. “You and I both know that doesn’t work.

“Anyway, so sometime in my freshman year I started eating less. I didn’t really try; I just kind of didn’t feel hungry anymore. So that went on for a while, and I felt a bit better but not really because I was constantly dizzy and got confused easily. And then my mom finally got surgery for her back issues, and they gave her some oxycontin that she didn’t use.”

“Oh,” Kaz said, small. Nina just smiled at him.

“I had really bad cramps one day so I stole one, and it felt good. Really good. And then it went downhill quickly. Long story short, when I was sixteen it finally caught up with me and I collapsed. Freaked out my moms a ton, but they were more mad at themselves than at me which. That sucked. Withdrawal sucked, and I felt like shit and I was constantly crying and screaming. So this one nurse- lovely woman, she saved my life- probably got sick of hearing me, so she pulled some yarn and needles out of her bag and told me to knit. And I did. I could barely hold the needles because my hands were shaking so bad, but I had something to do that wasn’t too much for my mind to handle.”

At that point she paused, wiping tears out of her eyes. They’d been accumulating for the latter half of her story, and the minute she stopped they flew for real. “Sorry, it’s just that I’ve never really told anyone about this whole thing. But I got some help after that, went on antidepressants, and here I am now!”

“You never even told Inej?”

She shrugged, took another deep breath. Some tears still leaked from the corners of her eyes. “I’ve tried, but I just… feel like telling her would make it seem like I’m trying to compete with her? You know, when your girlfriend is this super pure human being with a traumatic backstory, anything I say about myself just… seems so minor in comparison.”

“Nina,” Kaz said, speaking before he even thought about the words. “You overcame a drug addiction just a few years ago, and you’re here now as one of the most confident and with-their-shit-together people around. That’s not something minor.”

A soft laugh bubbled from her, and she smiled as she wiped away a few of the tears that were still there. “Look at you,” she said. “I knew you could be a decent human being! Is a blanket hug okay?”

He nodded, and when she threw the blanket- and her arms- around him, it felt _good._ Warm. For once he didn’t find himself shrinking from the contact, even with the protection of the blanket.

“So, now it’s my turn to be the therapist. When you freaked out over the knitting… it wasn’t about the knitting, was it?”

He squinted up at her, not understanding until- oh. That was what she was asking.

“I just… I keep feeling things I’m not used to feeling. And I feel like everything I’m feeling is exposed and being broadcast to everyone. It’s frightening,” he said, fighting every instinct in him that said _lie, lie, say you were really just upset and not being able to knit._

“That’s the scariest part about recovery. Getting all of these emotions back that you’re not used to. It feels like you’re being overwhelmed with all of these things you don’t understand, but… it gets better. You get used to it. Sometimes I still feel that void creep back, but I’ve come so far. I can’t fall back now.” She pulled away from the blanket hug, looking down at him. “And I know someday you’ll get to that point. It might seem like it’s impossible, but you’ll make it there.”

He had nothing to say. His throat was dry, his mind was empty. He couldn’t- This wasn’t normal. He wouldn’t make it to that point, he wouldn’t be around long enough-

 _Stop_ , he told himself. The part of his mind that was always assuming he wouldn’t be there in the future, that he’d finally put it together and kill himself was, for once, quiet. For the first in a long time, he felt that he might have a future.

The thought was terrifying.

“Okay, so let’s get off the heavy stuff. Do you want to try again?”

By the time he left, he had a couple rows done that… actually didn’t look that bad. His stitches were uneven and a few were dropped, but the chain he made looked at least vaguely like the beginning of the scarf. He felt lighter, somehow. He’d left something behind in Nina’s dorm room, that was for sure.

Nina had said once that she liked to put all of her worry and stress into the yarn; as she moved the needle, everything dark in her mind bled out and into what she was making. Maybe he’d bled out some of his thoughts into the yarn.

If he could bleed his thoughts dry and start fresh, that would be ideal. But maybe purging small bits at a time would get him there, eventually.

Brick by brick. Step by step. Stitch by stitch.

 

**queena**

hey

i just wanted to tell u that i told her

(2:13)

she hugged me a lot and said she’s sorry that happened??

(2:14)

so i guess there was nothing to worry about

(2:15)

i love her a lot and everything is fine

(2:16)

i just wanted to thank you

but remember what i said bc i mean it

(2:17)

good night

(2:18)

 

Kaz woke up from a light but dreamless sleep, responded with clumsy, sleepy fingers, and rolled back over and quickly drifted back to sleep.

 

_kb_

you’re welcome

(3:41)

good night

(3:42)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up is inej! oh man. that's a fun one. be ready. :)


	5. show me where my skin begins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long! just a warning that there's some heavier stuff talked about in this chapter, some discussion of suicidal ideation, and some implied child abuse.

Kaz was drowning.

He felt the water below his chest, softly lapping but not free enough to go anywhere. He was exhausted, weak; his head rested against something that wasn’t human, not anymore, and he didn’t have the strength to lift it anymore. All he could do was try to keep himself above the stagnant water level.

It had gone silent long ago. No one spoke anymore; he suspected everyone else had died. Maybe he had as well. If he hadn’t, it wouldn’t be long anyway.

Suddenly, he felt hands wrap around him. They weren’t kind; he was just a body after all. “Poor kid,” someone said, and he wanted to call out to them that he was alive, that he was still there, but there wasn’t enough left of him to say anything.

And then the bodies were close, too close, and beside him he saw long black hair on a large body and, on the other side, dark skin and ridiculous hair and-

And he realized it was a dream.

 

He woke up frozen. 

For a second, he didn’t know where he was because there was the weight of a body beside him. Instinctively he kicked at, but it was too solid for him to do anything. There was a moment where he thought he was still in the dream. There was a moment where he could feel the waxy, swollen skin of long-dead, waterlogged corpses. Rationally, he realized that he was in his dorm room and there was a white, plain ceiling above him and not the boarded roof of the shelter or someone on top of him, but that didn’t help his breath come easier or keep him from shaking.

The weight by his leg subsided and Kaz pulled his legs up closer, curling in on himself. Vaguely, he heard someone talking to him, but he couldn’t focus on their words enough for it to make a difference.

He was somewhere between the past and the present, and even though he  _ knew _ that he was fine, he couldn’t get the rest of him to realize that.

“Hey, let’s try to slow down your breathing, okay? Can you try to match with me?” The person-  _ Matthias, he noticed in a moment of clarity _ \- counted, his voice quiet. They’d run through breathing exercises before, and that usually helped to pull him back quicker.

It wasn’t working. Not this time.

He tried to match breathing, tried to listen to the quiet words of encouragement, to the flood of “you’re safe, everything’s okay, you just had a nightmare, everything’s fine,” but it did very little. Kaz was just  _ stuck.  _

Even when he managed to finally get his breathing under control, to stifle most of the shaking in his hands, his mind was a mess. He’d blink and see bodies all around him, or he’d feel the way his brother’s body felt under his head, or he’d smell watery decay all around him.

He felt like he was drowning.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Kaz said, suddenly. Transferring from being curled up on the bed to standing up was a stretch for his lungs that had just started getting a good stream of air, but he couldn’t just sit there. Not with Matthias staring at him and trying to help but not being able to do anything.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked. “I mean, I can walk you over there, if you want…”

“I’m fine.” 

Matthias stopped, gave him a look that didn’t really make sense.

“Listen, I’m just worried about you, okay? Don’t… don’t do anything you’ll regret. Please.”

He couldn’t listen to this. Not today. So Kaz grabbed his cane and tried to ignore the way his leg seemed to be screaming at him and his knee threatened to give out every other step. The relative warmth of January had suddenly snapped into freezing temperatures and excessive snow, which meant his bad leg had been in a near-constant stream of pain for days. He knew that, eventually, there’d be a day where his emotional state would take a downturn to match his physical state. That didn’t make it any easier when it happened though.

Someone brushed past him in the hallway and he froze again.

They hadn’t touched him, not really. Their hands might have brushed for seconds. 

But.

It was a Bad Day, he decided. 

So he leaned against the wall, trying to fight off a panic attack for the second time in less than an hour. Someone approached him and tried to ask if he was okay, but he just glared at them until they backed away.

Kaz decided the shower plan was probably a bad idea. He didn’t know if he’d be able to stand the feeling of his own wet skin, not on a day like this. So instead he went to the roof.

The roof access was, by far, the best part of the Crow Club. When the birds weren’t swarming it was a peaceful, quiet place with a good view of campus. Kaz often went up there to clear his head.

And he really needed to clear it.

For a second, looking at the edge of the roof where he always sat, he was reminded of that awful day years ago where he’d tried to throw himself off. He hadn’t been thinking rationally, not really; if nothing else, the fall was nowhere near long enough to kill him. And he’d known that, in a way.

But his thoughts had been racing and he couldn’t slow them down or even quiet them down enough to sleep, and he’d had enough.

So he’d jumped. And then he’d laid there on the sidewalk, something shattered in his leg, until a woman walking to work saw him and screamed.

Kaz pushed the thoughts away. He usually didn’t feel suicidal anymore. The pressing need was simply gone. Sometimes the thoughts were there, in the back of his head, but not loud enough to act upon.

He sat on the edge and stared at nothing, trying to clear his thoughts, until he heard the door open behind him. It startled him, a little bit; he dug his hand into the roof behind him to make sure he wouldn’t fall.

But then he turned, and it was Inej.

“Matthias told me you were having a rough morning,” she said, her voice softer than the slowly rising sun as she walked towards him.

“You could say that.”

She sat down beside him and just looked out at the sunrise. Kaz knew she wanted him to talk first, to open up on his own. In doing so, he couldn’t decide if she was pushing him or trying not to push him. 

Either way, he decided to do what she wanted.

“I don’t understand how you do this,” he said. “I feel like I’m falling apart, and every time I get somewhere near normal everything shatters again and- it’s exhausting.” At that point, Inej handed him a blanket and he wrapped it around his shoulders like a cape. “I don’t want to keep remembering. I don’t even know why I can’t get over it. I just…” 

He looked over at her again, at the soft, floral hijab that wrapped around her head and her loose sweater and jeans. He thought about the organizations she volunteered for, the students she tutored, the kids she commanded as the captain of the Gymnastics team. 

“I don’t know how you do it.”

For a second, Inej said nothing. She pulled her own blanket tighter around her, and then she said, “I don’t.”

All he did was stare at her.

“I feel the way you do. All of the time. You feel like you’ve put everything behind you, that you’re finally free of your past and you can be your own person, and then a boy looks at you a certain way while you’re out with your girlfriend and you’re throwing up behind a restaurant.” Her voice was flat, and her eyes were fixed ahead.

“You’re lying,” he said, the words slipping out. He didn’t mean it with harm, but she still shuddered the slightest bit anyway. “You’re… you do everything. People look up to you. You inspire and help people. I thought…”

“Kaz, I’ve been getting intense therapy for years. I told you what I was like when I first saw Anders, right?” He nodded, slowly. “I couldn’t stand people looking at me. I thought… I thought they could see right through me. See what I’d done. When I was in a crowd, I thought I’d see one of the clients I’d had and they’d recognize me. I couldn’t stand anyone to touch me because it always sent me back there.

“And it still happens sometimes. Sometimes Nina will hug me and I’ll be there. Sometimes we’ll be outside and I’ll feel someone looking at me, and I’ll be there. And sometimes… sometimes there’s no reason. Sometimes it just happens.”

Kaz couldn’t speak. 

Inej looked at him, finally; her eyes just the slightest bit distant. 

He didn’t want to ask.

“How do you get through it?”

She took a breath that hitched a bit in the middle.

“I learned how to distance myself from my body. I’d detach and I’d just… I’d float away. I still do it a lot. It kept me from thinking about what was happening, but… sometimes I still feel numb.”

He wanted to reach out to her, to hug her or at least just put his arm around her, but he knew in his current state and probably hers it would be a bad idea. But his hands itched for something,  _ anything  _ to help her stay here and not there.

He put his hand on her shoulder.

She said nothing for a moment, and then,

“I am better, though. It helps that I have a girlfriend who I know sees me as a person and not an object and who wouldn’t hesitate to punch a child trafficker. Gymnastics helps to keep me focused. When I pray, I feel safer.” 

When Kaz lifted his gaze and looked at her again, he saw the distance in her eyes had faded away. Inej looked like Inej again, beautiful and a bit broken but never defeated. “There were kids younger than me who didn’t get out. Sometimes when I can’t sleep I think about them. So that’s why I volunteer. Because… because kids don’t deserve what I went through.” 

When she wrapped her sleeve around her hand and placed it on top of his, he felt the slightest amount of water rise around him, but he did his best to block out the sensation.

“What we’ve both gone through,” she added.

It was Kaz’s turn to say nothing, then, as he pulled his hand away. 

“I’m sorry about what happened to you and your brother,” she said, soft. “But, to go back to what you said earlier, it’s perfectly rational to be fixated on this event. You lost your only remaining family and you should have died. What about that makes being stuck on it irrational?”

Kaz wanted to protest but, phrased, like that, there was nothing he could think of. “There’s nothing.”

“So you went through something deeply traumatic, and then you were sent to a completely different country with a language and a family you barely knew. Did you receive any counseling after the hurricane?”

“Just a brief visit from a hospital psychiatrist,” he said.

“You carried this with you for  _ years  _ and you barely told anyone about it. That takes strength. I think your mind is stronger than you think it is.”

He went quiet, and so did she for a moment.

“Recovery isn’t a straight line,” she said, and  _ wow  _ if she didn’t sound like Anders right then, “There are steps forwards and backwards. It’s just how it goes.”

It was quiet up there. The sun was just starting to rise and people were starting to leave their buildings, organized in little clusters. Some of the crows were awake and flying around. 

“Once your leg feels better, we should do my day. I think I have something that’ll help.”

He believed her, wholeheartedly. With Nina and Jesper he’d been doubtful, but… but Kaz trusted Inej. She had a way of bringing him back when he felt like he was slipping too far away. 

And then there was the time at orientation last year where they’d crammed an entire class in a room not big enough for all of them and he’d felt crushed, lost after Jesper disappeared to somewhere else. She’d found him, led him aside even when he was too out of it to realize what was going on, gave him space and tried to drag him back to the present.

It was hard, when he got lost somewhere that wasn’t actually real anymore. But he’d seen her claw her way back when she’d get distant at meals, when she’d freeze up and run to the bathroom to clear her head, and he knew if anyone could help him, it was her.

* * *

 

He met her in the parking circle a few days later, once he didn’t feel like he was in a constant state of being stabbed. Matthias kept urging Kaz to take the painkillers he’d been prescribed, but he usually refused. Part of him was a still a little averse to painkillers after  _ that  _ had happened, and they usually didn’t help much anyway.

Inej leaned against Jesper’s truck while she waited for him, wearing loose jeans and an old, baggy sweater. “I decided to borrow it for a while,” she said as he drew closer. “I figured it’s probably easier to get you into here than it is my car. Also, I’m supposed to pick up a bunch of stuff on the way there.”

The car switch probably was a good idea. Inej’s car was tiny and close to the ground, and Kaz was tall to begin with. Getting in and out of her car tended to get painful, fast. 

“So, what are we actually doing?” Kaz asked once he was seated. Inej turned the key, grimacing at how loud the engine roared.

“I’m taking you to a woman and children’s shelter. I usually help out there a bit when I have time, and I figured that…” She glanced over at him, then, something weird in the look in her face, “I figured that being here is kind of like helping your past self, you know.”

He had nothing to say about that.

Kaz had slept off a lot of that Bad Day, huddling up on his bed and trying his hardest to block out his thoughts that just kept circling back to something he really didn’t want to think about. After the initial panic attack he’d been able to tolerate Rotty’s presence, so the dog had laid its paws over him and licked him every so often. It had helped, in a way.

Now, he was still feeling a little bit lost and the intrusive thoughts were harder to push away, but he’d downgraded from Bad Day to just bad day. He could tolerate those, and he’d prefer a month of regular bad days to just a few Bad Days. The downturn he’d experienced had been the worst since… since the one that had drug him into this whole mess, basically.

Inej drove in relative quiet, just adjusting the radio every so often. She tended to be a quiet driver, which was a stark contrast to Jesper’s loud yelling and singing whenever he drove. It was peaceful, in a way. Kaz was able to look out the window and just sort of drift.

When Inej pulled up to the shelter, she pulled the keys out, hesitated, and then asked, “What’s your contact tolerance for today?”

Kaz considered. “Medium-low, probably?”

Inej nodded slightly and squinted one eye. “I can work with that. Usually when I come here around this time it’s to help out the kids- you know, give their moms a break for a little while. If that’s not something you’re up for today, I can probably have you go somewhere else-”

“I’ll do it.”

Maybe it was a bad idea. Maybe it was a horrible idea and he’d end up running to the bathroom and throwing up because some kid had touched him, but he’d try it. After all, he’d been working with Anders on extending his boundaries, so maybe this was good.

Inej tilted her head to the side, looking at him with obvious concern. “Are you sure? I mean, a lot of these kids are kind of quiet and aren’t super affectionate anyway, but there’s a risk there.”

“I can handle it.”

And he gave her that Look and grin combination that meant “I’m going to fuck something up real bad and it’s going to be glorious”, so she shrugged and finally made a motion to get out of the car.

The moment they stepped through the doors they were surrounded by children.

A couple at the front reached for her, chanting “Inej! Inej!” With a bring smile Inej knelt down and hugged the ones that stretched out their arms for her and made  friendly eye contact with the ones that didn’t seek contact. It was a small group of around six that went for her; the rest simply glanced her way, looking unsure.

Kaz chose not to think about the fact that the ones who were so excited to see her must have been there for an extended amount of time. To think that she brought happiness that way…

“Hey, guys! My name’s Inej and I’m here to read to you guys for a bit. Can you put your hand up if you can read already?” A couple of hands went up around the room with varying degrees of confidence. “Nice! All right, so if you’d rather do something else than be read to, can you keep your hand up?” The number dwindled to probably around eight, with the majority of the pool of children still staring at Inej. “So, if you have your hand up, you’re going to go with my friend Kaz here. Kaz, say hi!”

Was that supposed to be him?

Oh, shit.

“Hi, I’m Kaz?”

He threw a glare at Inej, who simply winked.

His little group of ducklings gathered around him, staring at him with varying levels of excitement. A boy right in front of him, probably around ten, seemed to almost vibrate in place; however, hanging back from the rest of the group was a very young girl with a large bruise on the side of her face.

Okay. So what do you do with a group of currently homeless children?

He’d spent some time in and out of shelters after his dad died and they’d run out of money to pay for a tiny room above a bar. Many of them had been dirty, overcrowded; Jordie would usually sleep with an arm around Kaz just to make sure he was safe. 

He didn’t want to think about the worst one, where the foundation had crumbled and the roof had been inches from caving in as the water rose, rose, rose and it got quieter all the time. 

But this place was bright and at least tried to maintain a facade of homeliness, with the brightly colored walls and little paintings strewn up everywhere. The kids looked sad and tired, maybe, but they were well-fed and clean. 

And they were currently staring up at him.

“Are you old?” said the boy right in front of him who seemed to be unable to stop moving around. If he just grew his hair out a little more, he’d be a perfect younger version of Jesper.

“What?” 

“You have a cane like my grandpa. Are you old?”

“Uh, sure.” 

Nineteen was old to a child, right? It was good enough. Why was he worrying about lying to a child he’d probably never see again? 

Kaz was good with kids, but  _ god  _ did he hate to be around them.

“So we’re just going to move over here and sit in a circle, and…” How did Inej do this? He looked around trying to find inspiration. Coloring? No, they were too old for that. Reading was off the table because Inej already had that covered and it was whole reason they’d split off in the first place. 

He tried to think back to some of the homes he’d been in with younger children. Usually he avoided the other kids unless they were drawn to him, like the girl who’d always made him braid her hair. Nothing.

Growing desperate, he did one last scan of the room…

And then his gaze fell upon the small shelf of old, tattered board game boxes, and he saw a little deck of cards sitting there. If there was one thing Kaz was good at…

“Do any of you know card tricks?”

All he got was a bunch of blank stares. 

Good.

He found a total of six decks on the shelf, which was _almost_ good enough. In the end, a couple of kids split their decks and shared. Some tricks wouldn’t quite work out without the normal number of cards, but that didn’t really matter. The kids seemed to enjoy it.

There was something powerful in learning magic, Kaz had learned. The most exhilarating part about learning sleight of hand was the fact that you could manipulate someone else’s thought process. At its core, magic was manipulation. When you’ve been manipulated yourself and you feel impossibly small, watching someone’s eyes follow the path you carefully set for them is quite the feeling.

Kaz couldn’t be Inej, couldn’t throw himself into volunteering and save people’s lives all of the time. He didn’t have the emotional capability for it. But he could give these kids a little bit of power, as slight as it was.

When he sat back and watched them practice on each other, guessing numbers and picking cards, he noticed only one child not participating. The little girl with the bruised face sat alone, holding her deck in her hands and slowly shuffling it around but not interacting with anyone else.

Kaz made his way over to her slowly, trying to appear as nonthreatening as possible. Considering he was just over six feet tall, wore all black, and had a severe case of Resting Bitch Face, that was quite a feat. Still, he sat down next to her and asked, “Do you need someone to practice on?”

She startled the slightest bit, a suppressed shudder running through her from the proximity. It was like looking in a mirror.

“I don’t want to hurt you. Would it be better if I moved back?” For a moment the girl looked at him, eyes blown wide, before she gave the slightest of nods. Kaz slid backwards until he was a safe distance from her, keeping his hands clearly visible so she knew exactly where he was. “Is that okay?” Again she hesitated before nodding. “Do you want to practice?”

This time, she shook her head, dropping her cards on the floor. Looking at her closer, she couldn’t be any older than seven. With her wide eyes and dark skin she almost looked like Alina, if slightly older due to her tension. 

“I know how you feel,” Kaz said softly, glancing over at Inej who had her whole group engrossed in a story. “When you’re afraid of people touching you. Maybe it’s because someone hurt you or something bad happened or anything else, but I know it’s not pleasant. Carrying something terrible with you is exhausting. But… there’s a lot of good things out there, and a lot of good touches you can get get from people. And if you work really hard at it, you might be able to let it go someday.”

What came out of his mouth was a ramble, a lot of half-parroted phrases and sentiments that had been stewing in his brain for however long. It probably barely made sense to the girl who was just staring at him.

But then she moved, finally, and hugged him.

It was light, due to her small size and her own touch aversion, but it was undoubtedly a hug. Of course it was uncomfortable, a little bit; keeping himself grounded was the slightest struggle. But maybe he had done something good, for once. Even though the girl never once said anything, when she eventually pulled away from him, some of the tension had evaporated from her frame. 

He’d probably never see her again, but he hoped she found something better in life.

* * *

 

“Ready to go?” Inej asked once her story was finished. Most of Kaz’s kids had grown bored of the card tricks and had moved onto playing games or running around. By the time she’d tapped his shoulder he’d finally moved into a chair, leg stretched out in front of him. As they left his kids waved him goodbye and the bruised girl gave him one last hug.

“So, if you’re feeling up to it, there’s one piece left to my day. Do you want to do that today, or save it for later?”

“What are we doing?”

There was a glint in her eyes as she said, “It’s at the gym, and that’s all I’m telling you. Are you up for it?”  
His leg wasn’t feeling great, but he agreed anyway. Why not?

* * *

 

At the gym, Inej took him to a corner near some of the gymnastics equipment where there was an assortment of punching bags. She walked right past them, opened up a storage closet, and pulled out a large lump. When she strung it up, he saw it was very much humanoid in shape.

“Somedays I get really angry, you know? And I can’t volunteer on those days. So I come down here, I hang that up, and I pretend it’s either the man who kidnapped me, or PTSD. It depends on how metaphorical I’m feeling that day.”

Kaz just stared at her.

“Let me tell you, there’s nothing more satisfying than telling yourself you’re beating the shit out of your mental illness.”

* * *

She was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up is a mini chapter featuring rotty! see you guys then!


	6. when you don't feel strong enough to stand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this whole chapter was written to "you will be found" from dear evan hansen, which is highly recommended.

A few days later Kaz woke up frozen, this time due to actual temperature instead of a nightmare. Or, more accurately, he woke up to the sound of a large _clang_ followed by a hiss, and was instantly alert because of the freezing temperature. Across the room, he heard Matthias was stirring as well.

“If you tell me the just went out, I swear-”

“The heating’s busted.”

Matthias glared; at least, Kaz assumed so. It was still fairly dark and he was currently reaching for his glasses so it was hard to tell, but if he had to guess that was it. When Matthias’s voice sounded like that and sat that specific way he was usually glaring.

The heating in the Crow Club was notoriously bad; however, considering how cold the whole winter had been, it was incredible that it had made it that far without giving out. Usually the heat gave out during the first big storm and then only half-worked until spring finally began to warm.

“Great,” Matthias said, pulling all of his blankets around him. “The last big freeze of the winter and we’ve got no heat.”

Kaz shrugged in response. “It’s not all that bad,” he said. At that point, Rotty uncurled from the foot of his bed and nestled himself closer, providing a _very_ nice heat source. That helped.

“You’re no fair.” In response, Rotty lifted his head, looked at Matthias, and yawned before settling back down.

“Nina usually has a supply of emergency blankets for when this happens,” Kaz said, remembering the time she’d brought down a stack of five blankets last year the first time the heat went out. “She also has way too many afghans.”

“But it’s _three in the morning_. There’s no way-”

 

**queena**

yo i hope you guys are awake because i am PREPARED FOR THIS

(3:23)

 

_kb_

we were just discussing you

(3:24)

 

“Okay, I stand corrected. But, really, how do you survive these?”

Again, Kaz shrugged. He was cold, for sure, but it was far from the worst he’d ever experienced. Besides, having Rotty nearby was a great source of heat. “I don’t know, you just get used to it?” Matthias only shook his head. “Aren’t you from Norway? I thought you’d have better cold tolerance.”

“That was a _long_ time ago. Also, when it’s cold in Norway, we find a source of heat. Unless you recommend starting a fire in our room, that doesn’t exactly help.”

There was a sudden, furious knocking on the door at that moment. Nina, loaded down with blankets, shuffled her way into the room while wearing her fuzzy penguin slippers. “ _Jesus_ , it’s cold down here.”

“You’re telling me,” Matthias said. “Are you and Inej doing all right upstairs?”  
“Oh, we’re great. Just having a cuddle session. You’re both welcome to join, if you desire,” she responded with an eyebrow wiggle.

“Not really my scene,” Kaz said, and Nina gave a look that was almost a little disappointed before she pulled her face back into a smile. “Maybe some other day.” _Probably not_ , he added mentally, but it was good to put on appearances anyway.

“Matthias?”

“No thanks. But I appreciate the offer.”

“Anytime,” she said, slipping out the door with one more eyebrow wiggle.

When she was gone, Kaz looked over at Matthias, who seemed slightly red in the face. “Since when are you two so friendly again?”

“I don’t know? I guess I proved to her that I’m a decent human being.”

Intentional vaguery. Kaz could see where he was going. “What you’re saying is, since November.”

Matthias blanched. “Look, that’s not what I meant. I mean, I guess that’s when I proved myself to her. But it’s not all about me, I know that, and I- I’m sorry for what I implied. I didn’t mean that.”

It was far too early for this.

“I’m going back to sleep,” Kaz said, and he laid back down. Rotty edged closer to him again, throwing a paw over his side. Of course, he didn’t expect to fall back to sleep for a long time; even with Rotty and a bunch of Nina’s blankets wrapped around him, it was far too cold. Sleep, in general was still difficult. Improving his sleep habits was still a battle, but it was getting better slowly. After a while, he did manage to fall into a light sleep.

By the time his alarm went off it was only marginally warmer in the room. Matthias was bustling on the other side of the room, trying to get everything together while pointedly not looking at Kaz.

So Kaz sat up, scratched Rotty’s chin, and then swung his legs over (minding the stiffness that usually followed the cold weather) and made to stand up.

Bad idea.

Pain shot through his bad leg, which had been at a dull ache all night. When he stood in order to get his ice pack out of the mini fridge, his knee wobbled and threatened to give out after only a few steps.

“Whoa, sit back down. I’ll get you the ice pack and some naproxen?”

“Just the ice pack,” Kaz said through clenched teeth because, okay, this was not a fun development. He’d slipped on some ice the day before and, most likely, that was cause of this flare.

Matthias just stopped and gave him a look. “Listen, Kaz, it’s okay if you take a painkiller. It doesn’t make you weak or whatever this whole issue is. You’re not going to overdose again because I gave you one pill- didn’t you say that Anders encouraged you to take something?”

“Matthias-” Kaz started, but Matthias just held up a hand.

“I’m not done. I just don’t understand why you’re so opposed to helping yourself, for once. It just doesn’t make any sense to me why, when you have something that’ll make you not feel like shit all of the time, you refuse to take it.”

“Would you just shut up?” Kaz snapped, finally. “I don’t want to take anything. It shouldn’t matter _why_ , but I’ll tell you that they don’t help anyway and if I even think about it, all I remember is puking my guts out and hallucinating for hours until you came along.”

“Did you ever talk about this with Anders?”

Kaz just glared.

“I’m asking a serious question. Did you ever talk to her about this? Or did you ever talk to a doctor about getting prescribed something else that might actually help with your pain?”

“This is literally none of your business. I asked to room with you because you don’t pry, but I guess I was wrong.”

For a moment Matthias hesitated, glancing at the ice pack in his hand. “Listen, Kaz, I’m just worried. Before my father died, he had an old injury to his hip that acted up when he walked too much. On bad days he was a mess; short-tempered and got fits of depression.” By the time he reached the end of the sentence, his face was almost red. “Did you know that he probably could have made it out when the fire happened, had it not been for the injury? We didn’t have the money for him to get professional help. If we would’ve, I wouldn’t be alone in this country.”

“Matthias. _Stop._ I don’t give a shit about what happened to your dad or whatever other reason you have that makes you entitled to the details of my life. This is _my_ pain. I can deal with it however I want. I don’t appreciate you, of all people, trying to convince me otherwise.”

At that moment, Matthias looked at the clock, threw the ice pack so it landed beside Kaz, pulled his backpack over his shoulder, and hurried out the door. “I was just trying to help,” he said before he left. “I guess that isn’t appreciated.”

Kaz’s hand was fumbling for something beside his bed that wasn’t his glasses because he _needed_ to throw something or break something just to get the tension out or-

There was a strange sensation on his neck.

Rotty was licking him.

It startled him enough that, for a moment, Kaz forgot what was happening. He quickly found himself drawn back to his body, closer to the present and more aware of himself. It was just a minor fight with Matthias. He’d meant well. What he said was shitty, but he hadn’t meant it.

“Thanks, boy,” he said as he reached to scratch Rotty’s ear. The dog simply hummed and hopped off the bed to sit in front of him, eyes wide and caring. “I guess I got a little out of it there.” In response, Rotty just sniffed Kaz’s hand until he started to scratch his ear, finding that one spot that usually had the dog tilting his head and leaning into the contact.

It was a welcome distraction. Part of him was still wired and angry from the little disagreement; usually, this was the part that would go out and do something stupid. But he had something to keep him grounded, and the presence itself was something to keep him relatively composed.

Rotty was a good idea.

Sometimes Kaz hated being the kid with the support dog, the same way he hated being the kid with the cane or Wylan hated being the kid with the screenreader. It wasn’t that the show of disability bothered him; after all, he’d fully accepted the limp as part of him a long time ago. But Rotty was something different. He was an outward expression of the fact that, emotionally, he was pretty fucked up. And as much as Kaz hated for it to be so visible and obvious, he had to admit that Rotty’s presence was beneficial.

As Kaz was thinking, Rotty walked over to the door and sat down, glancing back at him. Right. Matthias must not have taken him out earlier. He tried to stand up again to at least attempt to walk him, but his knee shook and threatened to give out immediately again. Shit. That was an issue.

“I can’t walk you today, buddy.” On good pain days he could manage enough to get Rotty adequate exercise; otherwise, Matthias was usually in charge of walking. Today was about as far as possible from a good pain day.

 

_kb_

hey so matthias is kind of pissed at me and i can’t really walk today so

could you take rotty out for me

(8:25)

 

Inej

I can

We’ll have a Discussion about this argument later but I can

(8:26)

 

_kb_

youre a saint

(8:26)

 

“So it’s just us today. I don’t think Matthias will be stopping in at all. What are we going to do?” He felt soft, talking to a dog the way he was. But why not? He preferred Rotty’s quiet looks and occasional barks over human interaction most of the time anyway.

Kaz settled on his bed, wrapped up in a pile of blankets with a brace and ice pack wrapped around his bad leg, which was elevated on three pillows. Initially he tried to work on a reading for class, but the occasional jolts of pain made it hard to focus. So Kaz shifted to the selection of movies that Jesper had downloaded onto his laptop with the justification that they were “fundamentals of the universe” so he _had_ to catch up on them.

Like usual, Rotty quickly settled in half beside Kaz, half laying across him.

It was quiet but not lonely, without Matthias stopping in. He usually dropped by the room every so often, and whenever Kaz skipped class he’d check in frequently just to make sure he was doing okay. None of those happened.

Every time Rotty heard footsteps going past the door he’d look up and glance towards it as if expecting the door to open. “You miss him,” Kaz said quietly at one point, resuming scratching his ear. “I guess it’s weird without Matthias around.”

It was more than weird. Eventually, Kaz joined Rotty in glancing at the door every time there were footsteps as if hoping that the blond would walk in like nothing had happened. The hardest part was not getting disappointed every time he failed to appear.

Matthias finally returned at 6:00, half an hour before his night class started. His hair was in a ponytail but with the front messed up, meaning he’d been running his hands through it all day. His face was red and flustered.

“Okay?” he asked, pointing to the empty space on the bed beside Kaz, who shrugged in response. “Jesus, it’s still cold in here.”

“Expect a couple more days of this,” Kaz said, barely looking up from the movie he was watching.

For a moment Matthias just sat there, staring at him, and then he said, “Look, I’m sorry for this morning. I misspoke, and I shouldn’t have said that. I just worry, okay? I want to make sure you’re taking care of yourself. That’s my main priority.”

Kaz took a quick glance at Matthias’s shoulder- he was wearing that hideous turtleneck, _good_ \- and leaned his head against him. He felt Matthias stiffen, probably thinking something like _what the hell, did I just break him?_. “It’s fine. I’m not used to someone caring that much.” A pause, and then he added, much quieter, “It’s nice. It’s just… different.”

“I understand how you feel,” Matthias said, still sounding a bit confused. “It’s strange. But you get used to it, eventually.”

Rotty moved so he was sitting in the space between them. There wasn’t a lot of room, but he squeezed in anyway. The added warmth was appreciated, as Kaz felt like he wasn’t freezing for the first time all day.

They sat like that for a while, quiet and peaceful and both petting a dog, before Matthias glanced at the clock, yelled “SHIT!” and abruptly jumped up and ran his way to class, still a little bit flushed.

Maybe this time it was for a different reason.

 _Hopefully_ this time it was for a different reason

 

_kb_

inej i just did a thing

i think it was a good thing

(18:41)

 

Inej

I can _feel_ the gay from all the way over here

So I’m pretty sure it was good

(18:42)

  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bonus:
> 
> Matthias
> 
> JESPER I DON’T KNOW WHAT JUST HAPPENED BUT YOU KNOW HOW KAZ AND I FOUGHT THIS MORNING????? SO I APOLOGIZED AND HE LIKE PUT HIS HEAD ON MY SHOULDER AND I THINK WE HAD A BONDING MOMENT? I DON’T KNOW WHAT WENT ON IT WAS WEIRD BUT IT WAS REALLY NICE HELP
> 
> HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH A GAY PANIC
> 
>  
> 
> jazz hands
> 
> just kiss him. right now.


	7. more than your father's son

“So all you have to do is take the derivative of that, square it, put it into the formula, and integrate and the answer  _ should  _ be pi over two.”

“Are you sure?”

“I mean, there’s an arctangent in there so it’s  _ probably  _ going to be pi over two. Unless you really mess up substituting, I think you’ve got it.”

Exactly four minutes later, Kaz resumed tapping his pencil against the table. “It’s pi over four.”

Across the library table, Wylan just squinted at him. “Are you sure you substituted right? It looks like the integral is right, but… five minus three isn’t one. I think that’s your issue.”

Kaz threw his pencil down and reached for the eraser, groaning. “Shit. It’ll work then.” He glanced up at Wylan, who was giggling the slightest amount but trying to hide it with his hand. “Stop laughing. I’m sure you’ve done it too.”

“Did I ever tell you about the time on the AP test when I wrote the wrong bounds for my integral but substituted in the right ones? I got the right answer, but I  _ still  _ lost all of the points. So, yeah. I’ve done worse.”

It wasn’t that calculus was  _ hard  _ for Kaz, necessarily. He was good with numbers, although he was best at statistics. Calculus was easy once he saw the pattern; if there was one thing Kaz Brekker excelled at, it was finding a pattern. But sometimes it got to be a little much, and Wylan seemed to enjoy helping anyway. So, they made an arrangement.

At that point Kuwei slid into the seat beside Wylan, face flushed from the cold and also possibly from running across campus. “Hey,” he said, throwing down a thick stack of papers. “They mixed up our mail again.”

Wylan, in response, rolled his eyes and heaved a sigh. “Okay, I get our boxes are right next to each other, but you’d think mail people would be used to it. There aren’t even any similar letters in our names.”

“You must just seem  _ that  _ attractive,” Kuwei said, doing a very good impersonation of Nina’s famous eyebrow wiggle. 

“And  _ you’ve  _ been spending too much time with my boyfriend.” Kuwei just huffed at that, but Wylan reached over him to get to the mail stack. “What did you get?”

“Just this,” he said, handing over a single envelope with  _ Wylan Van Eck  _ written in neat, formal handwriting on the back. Wylan glanced down at it, seemed to stare for a moment, and then immediately began ripping up the letter.

Amongst the relative silence of the library, the sudden sound turned several heads. Wylan didn’t seem to care. He tore at the envelope until small bits of the paper littered the floor and the table, and without a word gathered up the pieces and walked out.

Kuwei just sat with his eyes blown wide. Eventually normalcy in the library returned, but Kaz and Kuwei simply looked at each other.

And then Kaz looked down at the table and saw a small scrap of paper with  _ Jan V-  _ on it, and he knew. “I think his dad wrote to him again,” he said under his breath, meeting Kuwei’s eyes. 

“Oh,” Kuwei responded, looking momentarily… lost. “Should we do something?”

Kaz glanced down at his phone. It was 2:00 on a Tuesday, which meant Jesper and Nina were in class. Inej, who they’d recently designated Therapist Friend, had a lab. Matthias didn’t have class, but it was a well known phenomenon that Matthias, despite being the mom friend, was terrible with feelings. But on the other hand, it probably wasn’t a good idea to leave Wylan on his own.

So, there was only one thing left to do.

“I’ll go after him.”

Kuwei just gave him a blank look. “ _ You _ ?”

Kaz narrowed his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing. You’re just not the most… you’re not the best person for feelings talks. At least I thought.”

“Do you want to go talk to him? I’m sure you know a lot about having issues with your father.”

Kaz was, ninety percent of the time, trying  _ very hard  _ to be a good person. As much as being a sarcastic asshole had been the defining aspect of his personality for years, it was something he kind of wanted to leave in the past. Often, though, the filter he’d been building slipped away and whatever bullshit was in his head just sort of flowed out.

Like now. 

Kuwei blanched and tried to say something, but nothing really came out of his mouth. It was a bad thing to say, especially considering that the anniversary of his father’s death was rapidly approaching. He could apologize, but he was Kaz Fucking Brekker and if there was one thing he was good at, it was making a mess with his and other people’s emotions.

So, without a word, he stood up, grabbed his coat and cane, and left Kuwei alone to freak out over his comment.

 

_ kb _

hey jes ik you’re in class but i wanted to let you know wylan got another letter from his dad and he’s a little upset so i’m gonna try to talk to him

(2:14)

 

**_jazz hands_ **

jesus man that sucks

i’ll see if i can get out early but idk

good luck. he can get kind of weird when this happens

(2:34)

wait fuck prof just saw i have my phone out shit shit

rip me

(2:35)

 

It took Wylan a lot time to answer the door. Granted, it also took Kaz a long time to get  _ to  _ the dorm, considering their building was halfway across campus; he had to stop in the middle to text Matthias to let him know where he was going and also Kuwei was kind of pissed at him; and getting to Wylan and Jesper’s room meant climbing two flights of steps. For a moment Kaz worried he was going to end up being the Matthias in this situation, that he should’ve come sooner and it was a bad idea to leave Wylan alone right now, but then he finally opened the door.

“Jesper, what the fuck you should be in class and who told you anyway? I’m fine, really- you’re not Jesper,” he said, eyes puffy. He looked terrible. His hair was a mess and even though it was ungodly hot inside he still wore his thick, woolen scarf. Also, his hands were completely smudged with charcoal. “Why are  _ you  _ here?”

Okay. Apparently Kaz actually trying to be a good human was a novel concept. Remember to talk to Anders about that later.

“I was worried,” Kaz answered, shifting his cane so it was in front of him. “I figured you probably shouldn’t be alone after what happened.”

“After what?” Wylan said, making that ridiculously innocent face that was far too cute. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t remember tearing up a letter in the middle of the library?”

“Oh, that. It was just junk mail. I don’t need that in my life.”

_ God _ , Wylan was a bad liar. It was far more endearing than it should have been.

“Wylan, I know it was another letter from your dad.”

There went the cuteness on his face. Wylan’s whole form just… crumpled, as if not having to pretend suddenly increased the force of gravity. “Okay, fine. You got me. But I’m okay, really. I swear.”

Kaz’s phone buzzed right at that minute.

  
  
  


**_jazz hands_ **

ok so prof isn’t too mad. just a little pissed.

anyway i’m assuming that you got to wylan rn so don’t believe any bullshit abt him being okay

(2:41)

i told him my boyfriend’s having a major crisis so he’s gonna let me leave a few mins early

but pls don’t let him be alone 

(2:42)

SHIT HERE HE COMES AGAIN I SWASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE ON MY PHONE AGAIN

RIP

(2:45)

 

“So, we can either stay out here and be awkward, or you can let me in and we can be a little bit more comfortable. It’s your choice.” Wylan, whose shoulders were already slumped, seemed to deflate even more.

“Fine. You can come in.”

If Wylan was a mess, his room was even messier. Maybe some of that was Jesper, who was and always had been physically adverse to cleaning up after himself, but even Wylan’s side of the room had blankets strewn all over the floor and bits of trash everywhere. It seemed that he’d ripped something else up.

Wylan sat down at his desk in front of what looked to be the beginnings of a charcoal portrait. Kaz could tell the face was slightly feminine, but he couldn’t figure out if it was supposed to be someone in particular.

“It’s my mother,” Wylan answered without Kaz asking, not looking up from where he’d resumed sketching. “I don’t know what she’d look like now, but I can draw her as I remember her. It’s been  _ years _ .”

Kaz remembered the time last year when Wylan had found out that, despite what his father had told him for years, his mother was alive. Jesper hadn’t come home before one in the morning for days just trying to keep him in some sort of vaguely-okay state. 

“Did you know that he-”

“He institutionalized her. I know.”   
With a loud _snap_ , Wylan threw his stick of charcoal down and it broke in half. He didn’t seem to notice. “She was bipolar, I know that. And I think she had some kind of chronic illness. I couldn’t read, she wasn’t the perfect trophy wife he wanted, and so he just. Cast her out. I’ve been trying to find out where she is but he’s got the files so hidden and I… I can’t read them anyway.”

“I could help you,” Kaz said abruptly, cutting off Wylan’s stream of consciousness. “I could be your eyes or your… whatever in the brain controls reading ability. Besides, I’m very good at ruining people’s lives.”

Wylan just stared for a moment, and then reached over to pick up the other half of his charcoal. “I appreciate the offer, but it’s more complicated than that. You can’t just bring down my dad’s business by finding some strange papers. Anyway, that’s beyond illegal.”

In response, Kaz just cocked an eyebrow. “Sometimes, you don’t have to bring the whole thing down at once. All you need is a hunt of something wrong and they’ll usually undo themselves. Believe me, I have experience.”

Wylan was about to say something when the door burst open and a flushed, slightly panting Jesper stood in the doorway. “Hey, babe, I’m here and I ran as fast as I could. Are you doing okay? Do you need anything? Do I need to astral project and punch your dad for you because I  _ will  _ do it, don’t even worry.”

He stared at Wylan as if immediately expecting an answer. Instead, Wylan took a deep breath, glanced over at Kaz, and then said in a soft voice, “I’m doing okay, I think. Kaz and I had a talk. It’s not as bad, not right now.”  
A bright smile broke out across Jesper’s face as he ran over to wrap Wylan in a hug. “Hey, I’m proud of both of you! Look at you, talking about feelings and things. That’s great!” Wylan smiled too, just a little bit.

“I’ll… get going,” Kaz said, trying not to break up the mood of the room too much. He’d done his good deed for the day, and now he had to go make up with Kuwei. Or not do that and just think about it. Either one worked.

“Hey, Kaz?” Wylan said when Kaz was just by the door. He turned just the slightest. “We can take my day in a few days. I have a pretty good idea.”

 

Wylan, as it turned out, took his day on the Saturday three days later. Because (Wylan’s words, not Kaz’s) his building was “inaccessible as hell”, Wylan decided it was a better idea to load up his satchel with probably far too many art supplies and walk all the way to the Crow Club.

That turned out to be a bad idea when he arrived at Kaz’s room, shoulders bent awkwardly to account for the weight, arms loaded up with even more supplies. Matthias just gave him a look before he left that definitely meant “let me know when you’re done so you don’t have to carry all of that back by yourself”. 

“How are you feeling?” Kaz asked as Wylan dumped everything onto the desk gracelessly and sank into the desk chair, rubbing at his shoulder. 

“Oh, me? I’m great. Peachy. Never better.”

“Wylan. Let’s not do this again.”

Wylan let out a sigh as he slumped back in the chair, spinning himself around to face Kaz. “I mean, I am doing better than I was a few days ago. It’s just not fun to get those letters, you know? I mean, I don’t make Jesper read them to me anymore but I  _ know _ what’s in them.” Crossing his arms and leaning back further, Wylan pointedly avoided looking at Kaz as he said, “I don’t need to be reminded that I’m a failure. And the worst thing is, I can’t tell if I’m happy or not that I  _ am  _ a failure.”

“You don’t want to be like him,” Kaz said, slipping into that soft voice he hadn’t aware he had until recently. “I understand. But you don’t need to worry about that, because you’re not.”  
“I know that. He pretty much told me that years ago.” Wylan’s voice was clipped. “But it still terrifies me to think about it.”

“Wylan, listen to me.” Kaz leaned forward and tried to meet Wylan’s eyes as best as he could. “You are more than your father’s son. You’re not a mistake. You’re not a failure. Even though you can’t read, you’re more than that. Do you believe me?”

To his credit, Wylan didn’t  _ disagree _ . He didn’t really agree either, though. Instead, he just stared at Kaz, blinked a few times, and then said, “... Let’s get to arting.”

Well, Kaz would take that as him not completely fucking up, so that was good enough. Meanwhile, Wylan turned the chair back around and started sifting through the supplies he’d dumped on the desk. “So, I brought a bunch of options. I figured we could just do some abstract and geometric-ish doodles, or we could try to copy from an image, or we could do whatever you want. It doesn’t matter to me.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter to me either,” Kaz said, dragging Matthias’s desk chair over in order to sit next to Wylan. “You pick.”

For a moment, he simply tapped his pencil against the desk. “You know, I should’ve brought some Bob Ross over. That would be relaxing for both of us. But…” He chewed on his lip and looked over his materials one last time. “I think the doodling will be fine for now. I do that a lot when I’m really stressed out and it helps a lot because you really don’t need to think.”

So Wylan handed Kaz a sheet of paper and a handful of brushes, and poured out a bunch of acrylics onto a paper plate that would work as a palette. “What I usually do is take a neutral color and make some lines. It doesn’t matter if they’re curvy or straight, I just need a guideline. Once that’s done, I just kind of fill in the spaces. It’s nothing super intense, but I like doing it a lot. Very soothing.”

With that, Wylan turned on a playlist of classical music and let Kaz work in silence. He was right; it wasn’t anything groundbreaking, just painting some lines onto a sheet of paper and filling it in. But the simple motions, combined with the soft music, did help to clear his mind. Some days, what he needed most was to be able to slow his thoughts down.

After a few minutes, though, Wylan broke the silence and said, “So what’s going on with you and Matthias?”

“What?” Kaz responded, jumping out of the trance-like state he’d been getting into. Looking down at his paper, he realized he’d been filling every blank the exact same shade of green. Oops.

“You know, the way you guys have been acting since November? How you seem to do everything together but won’t admit it and you keep giving each other these weird, longing looks when you think the other isn’t looking?” Kaz just glared at him. “What, you didn’t think I noticed?”

“It’s nothing.”  _ Was  _ it nothing?

“Now I sound like you:  _ sure  _ it was. I’m sure it was also nothing when Jesper got a panicked text from Matthias in the middle of the night last week screaming about having a gay panic.”

What happened to the sweet, innocent kid who blushed at the whole  _ idea  _ of romance just a year ago? Kaz decided he didn’t like sassy Wylan.

“Besides, you guys already have a dog. You’re practically married.”

At that, Kaz pushed on Wylan’s shoulder. “Shut up and get back to your painting.” He looked down to finish up his own painting, but out of the corner of his eye he saw Wylan wink at him.

He let the silence remain again until Kaz finished the abstract doodle. Then, Wylan only spoke enough to pull up an image of a mountain and pull out some more bottles of acrylics. After that, they didn’t speak again until Matthias startled them both by opening the door.

“Do you guys realize that everyone else is at dinner and waiting for you?”  
Kaz glanced down at his watch, shaking out his wrist that he hadn’t realized was starting to cramp up, and it turned out it was actually dinner time. He hadn’t realized how much the time would slip away.

“Yeah, we lost track of time. We’ll just clean up and head out in a minute. You don’t need to wait for us,” Wylan said. Matthias gave a suspicious look but listened to him anyway.

Once he was gone, Wylan looked over at Kaz while he started to pick up some of the mess on the desk. “Remember what I said. I’m pretty sure whatever’s going on between you guys is mutual, so you might as well make a move at some point. Put that boy out of his misery.”  
Kaz rolled his eyes at that, but he said, “Okay, sure. And make sure you remember what I said. Especially that offer about your dad. I think we could take him down, if we found the right information.”

When they got to dinner everything seemed pretty much normal; after all, Nina and Jesper were arguing about whether or not putting pineapple on pizza was a cardinal sin while Inej tried to sneakily take an unflattering picture of Nina, which was impossible. After a while, though, Kaz noticed that Kuwei was still avoiding looking at him, and at one point he looked over to Matthias and did notice a strange look on his face.

Maybe Wylan was right. 

He was still being a little shit, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up is kuwei! see you guys soon :)


	8. i promise i'll do better

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song for this chapter is [light by sleeping at last](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7egYKkIKqDs)

One week later it was March 7, also known as Kuwei’s Day, also known as Protect Kuwei Day, also known as The Day Kuwei’s Dad Was Shot, also known as Oh Shit Everyone Hug Kuwei Day.

And he was still mad at Kaz.

In his nearly twenty years of life, Kaz had made a lot of bad decisions. Most of those bad decisions had hurt him and other people. Still, telling Kuwei ‘I’m sure you know a lot about having issues with your father’ is probably up there among some of the worst things he’s said. Especially in recent history.

He’d tried to apologize several times. Kaz would square his shoulders, look Kuwei straight in the eyes, take a deep breath- and then say something else that was completely unrelated. Because Kaz Fucking Brekker doesn’t apologize. He says something dumb, hurts someone’s feelings, and then walks away while flipping them off. 

“Can’t you just do it for me?” he said, holding Rotty’s face with his thumbs rubbing his ears.

“No. You have to do this one your own. I’m not fighting this battle for you,” Matthias said, his back to Kaz while he worked on a reading from the  _ Divine Comedy.  _

“... You do realize I was talking to Rotty and not you, right?”

With a sigh, Matthias set his book down and turned around, brushing hair out of his eyes. “I mean, he’s not going to help you either. And I’m sick of reading about people lying in shit, so we’re going to talk about this.”

“What if I don’t want to talk about it?”

Matthias gave him A Look ™. “You want to talk about this.”

“Are you sure?”

The same Look **™** , only twice as powerful. 

“Fine, we can talk, but there’s not much to say about it. I fucked up, I said bad things to Kuwei, and I need to apologize except I have no fucking idea how to do that without making him feel  _ worse _ right now.”

Matthias just made a face and started chewing on the end of his pen. It wasn’t the first time Kaz had fucked something up and probably should apologize, but he usually never actually carried out the second half. But this was  _ Kuwei.  _ “All you need to do is say something to him. It’s not  _ that  _ difficult,” he said.

“Did you miss what I just said? Because the issue is that I have  _ no idea  _ what to say to him. I know I should, but..”

“ _ But  _ you don’t know what to say. I get you, but you’re just going to have to do it.” From the desk, Matthias’s phone buzzed, startling them both. He spun around, thumbed a quick response, and then turned back around before Kaz could say anything else. Matthias really had gotten better at texting. “So, I just got you an in.”

Kaz rolled his eyes. “What did you just arrange?”

Matthias’ grin was almost devilish as he said, “Wylan and Jesper have been on Kuwei duty all morning and they’re going to go for lunch soon, which means they need someone in the meantime-”

“So you’re going to go over. That isn’t revolutionary.”

“No,  _ we’re _ going over. I’ll stay over until you guys smooth it over a little bit, and then I’m going to get out, you can work out all of your issues, and we can be one big, happy family again.”

For a moment Kaz just stared, but then he reached for Rotty’s leash and stood up. “Where are you going?” Matthias asked.

“I thought you said we were going to go over to Kuwei?”

Matthias gave him a blank look, shrugged, and then rose to join him. “I didn’t think you’d be that receptive of my idea.”

“Really, you  have no faith in me,” Kaz shot back as he grabbed his cane and left a stunned Matthias in the room behind him.

Kaz had never actually gone to Matthias’ old room that was now home to just Kuwei. Before he’d moved, the two of them had barely been on speaking terms and Matthias’ relationship with everyone else had been strained anyway. He’d hung around on sheer force of will and a little bit of Inej and Kuwei, who had designated Matthias their token tall friend. Besides, Matthias’s room was on the third floor of a building with no elevator, and there were very few people he was willing to endure steps for. Matthias, until recently, had not been one of them.

Jesper silently opened the door after Kaz knocked once. He looked tired, a remarkable feat considering he seemed to run on endless energy, but still gave them a hint of a smile. Behind him, the room was dark except for one set of blinds that was pulled up, allowing a sort of half-light to flood the room. Kaz could barely make out the shapes of Wylan and Kuwei behind him, half-hidden under blankets and huddled together. 

“Thanks for coming,” he said, voice low. “It means a lot. We just, uh… we need a break. You know.”

“Of course. We understand,” Matthias said. “It’s a lot, I know; I did this last year. Take as much time as you guys need.”

The little half-smile Jesper had been giving them broadened into a real grin. “Thanks, man. You’re the best.”

Kaz, meanwhile, felt very out of his element. 

Jesper called to Wylan, who slowly untangled himself from Kuwei but left the blanket draped around his shoulders. He looked just as tired, eyes red and puffy. Like Jesper, he flashed them a small, non-genuine smile as he shrugged on his coat and entwined his hand with Jesper’s. 

Matthias wasted no time in going into his old dorm room. Kaz, on the other hand, had to be waved forward.

Kuwei hardly looked up when they entered. He’d pulled the blanket closer around himself, pulling his legs up and huddling into a small ball on the edge of his bed. 

“Hey,” Matthias said, his voice soft and gentle. Dully, Kaz recognized it as the voice he used when he was in a panic attack. Lulling, soothing;  _ grounding _ . Perhaps it was what Kuwei would have needed on any other day, but he didn’t even react. Rotty pulled on his leash and Kaz simply let go, allowing the dog to jump onto the bed and curl up next to a still unresponsive Kuwei. 

Matthias looked over at Kaz, frowning, but he quickly turned back forward and resumed the cheerful disposition. “You should probably get some sun. It’s really drab in here.”

“Not feeling it,” Kuwei said, finally, still not looking at them.

“I’ll carry you.”

Nothing, which was a bad sign because Kuwei never turned down an opportunity to be carried.

“You could ride on my shoulders and feel tall.”

Nothing for a moment. Then, Kuwei looked up. 

“I’ll do it if we can go past Inej.”

Matthias grinned at his success and hoisted Kuwei onto his shoulders while Kaz texted Inej that she had to come outside because of Reasons, and they set out. Really, it probably should have been more concerning to see a large rugby player walking around carrying a tiny person on his shoulders while his roommate walked behind them with a very large dog, but it had happened enough times already that no one looked twice.

Inej, as promised, met them near the center of campus, holding hands with Nina. When Kuwei passed she bowed and Nina blew a kiss, which made him smile the slightest amount.

After a good circle they returned to the room, at which point Matthias winked and took his leave with Rotty in tow. And that was how Kaz and Kuwei ended up standing in the middle of the room staring at each other, neither one knowing what to do. 

“So, about what I sai-”

“Not now.”

Kaz stared at him. So apparently he didn’t want an apology. Great, perfect, there goes that stress-

“What are you doing?”

Kuwei had walked away from the center, pulling pillows off of his bed and throwing them underneath his desk. He looked over his shoulder just the slightest bit and responded, deadpan, “I’m building a blanket fort.”  
“What?”

“Are you deaf as well? I said I’m building a blanket fort.”

Not a single word came to Kaz’s mind.

“Did you know that’s a universal art? I learned how to make one in…  I think it was Cambodia. No, wait, that’s wrong. It was Liberia. Or… or was it India? I don’t remember. Too many countries end in -ia.”

Kuwei kept talking as he ripped blankets off of his bed. “I know we made some in Syria because we were stuck for a while. You know, there were some cots in the refugee camps that could easily be moved around. So we’d just flip them on their sides and make a whole fort and drape these horrible blankets around and then we could pretend we were safe. It doesn’t work.”

“Kuwei-” Kaz tried to say, but he went ignored.

“Yeah, something would happen and then we’d make a whole fort but it wouldn’t help. And then there was the time- oh, what was his name, I can’t even remember- got sick while we’d made a fort and then all of us got sick. You don’t even  _ want  _ to know what it smelled like. Especially when… whatever her name was died, and we didn’t even know for a while, so she just laid there for days and it was so hot.”

“Kuwei, please don’t do this.”

Kuwei didn’t stop, not really. He punctuated Kaz’s statement as he threw a pillow on the ground and slammed a stack of books on top of the corner of a blanket draped across his dresser. “What, should I not talk about where I’ve been? I mean, I can throw your words back at you. I’m sure you have  _ plenty  _ of experience repressing your feelings.”

That stung. That physically stung. “Look, Kuwei, I know you're mad about what I said, but I’m sorry-”

“I’m not mad at you,” Kuwei said, throwing more pillows under the desk. “I’m just  _ mad  _ in general.” Kaz was pretty sure the first part was a lie, but he wasn’t going to argue it. Not when Kuwei was in this sort of state.

So instead, Kaz said, “Kuwei,  _ breathe _ .” The boy’s face was flushed, his breaths coming in short, ragged gasps. “There’s a certain rhythm… shit. I can’t remember it.”

“Six, seven, eight. In six, hold seven, out eight. I know. Jesper showed me. It doesn’t do anything.” 

Well, there went Kaz’s idea to comfort him. “You should… probably sit down.” Surprisingly, Kuwei followed his advice and sank to the ground, scooching himself to be in the nest of pillows and blankets under the desk. 

“You can join me, you know.”

Kaz was tempted to decline the offer, because 1) he was too tall to fit, and 2) getting up from the ground was about a hit-or-miss experience, but he figured in Kuwei’s current state it was probably a good idea to listen to him. So he slid down beside Kuwei and tucked his legs up so they were only slightly extending out of the covering blanket. For a while, Kuwei was silent while he seemed to be trying to get his breathing under control.

It was uncomfortable, for Kaz to be on the other end of a panic attack and have no idea what to do. He knew the things Matthias tended to do to him, but in this context nothing seemed like it would work for Kuwei anyway.

There, sitting next to Kuwei, it dawned on Kaz that he’d been too far in his own head this whole time to actually be able to help anyone. Sure, he’d talked Nina through some hard times and helped Wylan with his feelings on his father, but both of those were just him guessing at the right things to say. Never in his life (or, at least, since his life had majorly changed) had he truly helped someone to feel better.

“Listen, Kuwei, I’m really sorry about what I said about your dad two weeks ago. I really didn’t intend to hurt you, but it just kind of slipped out-”

“I already told you. I’m not mad at  _ you _ . Give me a second.” Kuwei’s voice was still strained, still scraped out between heaving breaths. Kaz was acutely aware of the way his fists were curled tightly to the point of drawing blood from his palms. It took a moment of warring with himself, but eventually Kaz reached for him and gently rubbed his wrist as encouragement to loosen up.

Eventually, Kuwei let out a sigh-like breath and uncurled his fists, wincing at the blood that welled up from the new lack of pressure. The tension seemed to drain from his body; the legs that had been coiled close to his chest relaxed and slumped to the ground, and his head fell back and lightly hit the wall behind them. Kaz could tell he was still shaking, just a little bit, but it seemed as though the worst was over. 

“Kuwei-?” 

He didn’t respond; at least, he didn’t respond to  _ Kaz _ . In a low voice he muttered something in Chinese, and then glanced over at him.

“It’s been four years. I didn’t- I hardly even realized. It feels like it was just a few days ago.” Kaz started to say something, just a murmur of solidarity, but Kuwei shook his head. “Let me just talk. I need to get this out.”

He understood.

“We were… We were in Sudan. It was just a hospital, not even in a bad part. You know, it was pretty normal stuff going on, they just needed some extra help. So my father was helping, I was staying with a family while he worked, and it actually wasn’t bad. It was far from the worst place we stayed. And then one day I was visiting, and-”

The cut off was abrupt. Kuwei had been talking fine, the words sounding detached from their actual meaning. And then he stopped, a visceral shudder running through his body. There was another harsh intake of air, and he continued, “I was visiting. I liked to help him, you know? He wasn’t a doctor, not by any means; he knew how medicines work and how to make them, but actually treating was beyond his education. But he still sometimes worked in clinics and followed doctors around and, you know, he picked up on a lot. 

“That day… I’m not sure what happened. I don’t know if it was some argument between people, or if some guy just wanted to shoot up a hospital, but all I know was there was yelling, my father threw me to the ground and I- I looked up. I don’t know why I did. I heard the footsteps, I heard the gunshots, but I-”

Kuwei stopped again, this time more violently. His breaths reverted back to how they were; the laxness to his posture reverted back into a protective coil. But he kept talking. “I don’t know what happened after that. I know he was gone, and I didn’t know what to do because I had nowhere to  _ go. _ I couldn’t go back to China; they didn’t want us and we were running from them anyway. I didn’t have family besides him. The family I stayed with offered to take me in for a while, but food ran short quickly and our situation got worse and I- I couldn’t do it.

“There was nothing to do. I fell in with some refugees because we were displaced anyway. I tried to recreate some of my father’s formulas, but I don’t know chemistry like he did and half of his work was ruined away. And then two years ago I came here officially as a refugee.”

Kaz knew the story from there. He knew the agreement with the government to, someday, secretly work on recreating the pathogens his father studied that were dangerously close to biological weapons. He knew how Kuwei somehow found himself at a college where he barely spoke English, how he was alone until he was forced to work with a girl who seemed larger-than-life in physics.

And here he was today.

“Are you done?” Kaz said in a low voice, not quite meaning the words that came out.

“Yeah. That’s about all I have.” Kuwei was breathless. He hadn’t breathed, not nearly enough during his whole speech. His face was flushed, teary; any semblance of normalcy that had arisen earlier was gone. 

“Did you… did you ever tell anyone about this before?”

It took a long time for him to respond. When he did, his voice was scratched and raw. “No. Not the whole thing.”

“How do you feel?”

“Terrible.”

Kaz laughed, just a little bit. Because he was right. He was reminded of the time, weeks after starting to see Anders, that he’d told her his whole story. Their normal appointment time had gone over just because of how often he’d had to stop.

And he didn’t feel better afterwards. Everything felt so fresh again and he felt… exposed. Waterlogged. Exhausted. But eventually, that faded into something not-so terrible.

“Why did you tell me, then?”

“I don’t know. I just thought...” Kuwei’s body was still rigid, but once again he took a deep breath as an attempt to ground himself. “I thought you could relate.”

And Kaz did. He remembered being there when his brother died; if he tried hard enough, he could remember the morning that there was hardly anything left of his brother until, suddenly, there was a gaping emptiness. He remembered homes that weren’t homes and a deep longing for his dad or for his brother to come back. He remembered being thrown into a country with a new language, with a culture that seemed foreign. And here, beside him, was Kuwei, who had gone through all of that and more and Kaz hadn’t even  _ known  _ the extent.

“I do relate. I… probably relate more than you could imagine.” 

“I don’t know what to do,” Kuwei said, leaning down and burying his head in his hands. “I can hold it together the rest of the year, but today… I wish I could do better. I wish I didn’t fall apart on the same day every year. God, I wish-”

That was the point where Kuwei started sobbing. Anything intelligible in his words drifted away, and he just hugged his knees tighter as his shoulders shook.

Kaz was not good with crying people. It wasn’t something he’d done for years, and didn’t most people try to give hugs when someone else was crying? He wasn’t really up for that. Not at all.

So he… just kind of slung an arm around Kuwei’s shoulder and, in a voice he forgot he had, slipped into Vietnamese and spoke. Sometimes his first language was fuzzy from disuse despite how much he tried to hold onto it, but today he ignored the verb tenses that flowed from his grasp and the words that didn’t quite fit. Without meaning to, he lapsed into one of his father’s favorite stories, about a young boy, a magical tree, and the wife he rescued from death.

It was when he reached the end of the story, where the boy is stranded on the moon alone and desperate to find a way back that Kaz felt something wet on his cheek. He blinked, a strange resistance in his eyes, and then felt another drop and-

How long had it been since he’d cried?

He wiped his eyes, more tears replacing the ones that had already fallen and decided  _ fuck it, touch aversion be damned _ , pulled one of the blankets down, and drew Kuwei into a hug. Kuwei, unsuspecting, stiffened for a moment before he relaxed into it, easing tension once again but perhaps this time less fleetingly. 

“I want to go back,” Kuwei said, his voice shaking. “I want to go back to when my dad was alive and it was just us, travelling and hiding and making a life wherever we could. I wish…”

“I do too,” Kaz said, and the nostalgia for his life with two parents and a brother and a dog was overwhelming. He realized that they were both the boy in the story, clinging to the root of a tree that soared higher and higher and being helpless to only look down as their life and everything they knew grew smaller, smaller-

But he realized that, now, he had Matthias and Inej, who were perhaps the most parental friends that existed. Jesper  _ was  _ his brother again. He had a dog. He had Nina, Kuwei, and Wylan, who were almost like some of the younger siblings he’d had in the foster homes that weren’t so terrible. He  _ had  _ a family again.

“But we can’t go back,” he said; meanwhile, over six years’ worth of tears continued to pour from his eyes. It was embarrassing, yes, but Kuwei wasn’t one to judge and he probably deserved this anyway. “It’s impossible, and…” And what? “And we’ve changed. Maybe it’s for the better. Maybe it’s not. But you’re not alone. You have a family now, bigger than ever before, and we can rebuild a life together. You  _ can  _ do better. Maybe not today, but someday.”

Kuwei didn’t respond, but he did curl up tighter in Kaz’s blanket hug. And he didn’t pull away. 

It had to be a record for the longest amount of time Kaz spent voluntarily touching someone since he’d used his brother’s body as a floater.   
And it was, for the first time in years, enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bonus:
> 
> Kaz woke up from a sleep he wasn’t aware of when there was a knocking on the door. Dimly, he realized that he’d cried himself to sleep, which was an issue to think about later. Someone was furiously pounding on the door.
> 
> He was tempted to ignore it in order to preserve the peace that the sleeping Kuwei must have found, but he was suddenly aware of his phone buzzing like mad. When he pulled it out, Matthias’s number flashed alongside several angry messages.
> 
> So, as gingerly as possible, Kaz stood while disturbing Kuwei as little as possible. He limped over to the door, leg protesting at standing after being so cramped for so long, and threw open the door to see a very angry Matthias flanked by Wylan and Jesper. Matthias started to yell about how he’d been this close to calling campus security on them, but then he must have seen Kaz’s puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks and he stopped.
> 
> “We had a bonding moment. I cradled him in my arms,” Kaz said, voice low to keep Kuwei from waking up. Matthias didn’t respond. He just nodded and closed the door as gently as possible. 
> 
> Kaz walked back to Kuwei and resumed his place in the blanket hug.
> 
> \----  
> i'm sorry, i couldn't resist.  
> the fairytale is [chú cuội or the man in the moon](http://en.vietnam.com/culture/art/fairy-tales/chu-cuoi-or-the-man-in-the-moon.html), which is a really beautiful tale. next up is matthias, for our last standard chapter!


	9. shadows fall away like dust

Finals, Kaz learned, were infinitely more stressful when there was enough of your brain not occupied by Trauma Shit (™, courtesy of Inej) to actually care about grades. Last year, and for all of high school, he’d gotten by on sheer apathy and lucky guesses to pull through finals; now, the possibility of a future was hanging too nearby for him to not care.

Which was how he woke up to his face pressed into his calculus textbook, pencil still gripped in his hand, back aching something awful from hunching over his desk all night. As he became more aware, he noticed the sound of Matthias laughing slightly behind him. “Shut up. You’ve fallen asleep while studying before,” he said, bleary.

“Yes, but I’ve always woken up after an hour or so. I’ve never slept a whole _night_ at my desk.” He was still laughing, damn him. “How much sleep have you been getting lately?”

“Uh…” Kaz’s sleep habits had been getting better, he swore. And then he’d had a sudden snap of anxiety over finals a few weeks ago, and here he was. “Not enough?”

“And by ‘not enough’ you mean…?”

Shit, there was no avoiding Matthias. “I don’t think I’ve fallen asleep before two in the morning for a few weeks.”

Matthias just groaned and threw his head back. Lately, his sleep habits had slipped into their old pattern, where he’d sleep a few hours every night and then occasionally pass out all night. Normally he’d feel rested after his one night of sleep and could keep going, but this time, he’d wake up with his brain feeling like sludge and all of his thoughts replaced with the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus.

“Listen, finals aren’t _that_ big of a deal. I mean, you’re probably doing fine in all of your classes this semester- look, your attendance was higher than ever! Besides, I’m sure you’ll do fine without staying up super late every night.”

“I know, but…” _But I actually care about something for once and it’s weird, what do I do, how do you deal with this_. “... I’ll try to sleep more. I promise.”

“Good!” Matthias said, patting him on the shoulder, his hand lingering perhaps a second longer than necessary at the end. Kaz frowned at him but didn’t say anything. “Um, anyway, we should probably go to breakfast. And then-”

He suddenly broke off from what he was saying, standing still as if frozen to that spot. Wide-eyed, Matthias stared at him, and Kaz was about to call for help for a seizure or something when he said, in a strange voice, “Holy shit, I never took my day. I _came up with this whole thing_ and I never took a day. Oh my god. We’re doing that today. Studying be damned.” Kaz started to protest, but Matthias just gave him a Look™ and pointed at him, so he shut his mouth.

At breakfast, though, Wylan and Nina both gave him a synchronized eyebrow wiggle when Matthias announced he was taking his day today.

* * *

“... You _bake_?” Kaz said, leaning heavily over the counter to try to suppress his laughter.

“What, is it that surprising?” Matthias didn’t pause from pulling containers of flour out of cabinets and looking between various pans. “I’m pretty sure you’ve eaten my cookies before. They’re pretty heavenly.”

As a rule, Kaz kept his love of chocolate fairly quiet; after all, his sweet tooth kind of damaged the whole badass reputation he had going on. Plus, he’d kind of avoided Matthias on principle for most of the previous year. “I mean, it kind of is? You’re this big rugby player who always looks like he’s willing to beat someone up. Those aren’t exactly characteristics of a baker.”

“Okay, first, stop with the stereotyping, it’s very offensive and grandmothers aren’t the only people who bake. Not that there’s anything wrong with grandmothers baking.” At some point one of the flour containers had exploded on Matthias, so his shirt was speckled with white powder. This only aided the comedic value of him standing, one hand on his hip, the other pointing at Kaz with a wooden spoon. “Second, you forget I had a pregnant mother who went through some _intense_ cravings, and my father was in no shape to bake for her. And third, I’ve caught you knitting before and you always cuddle with a dog, so don’t even start.”

Kaz through his arms up in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, fine. What are you even making?”

“I think you mean what are _we_ making?” Kaz raised an eyebrow. “I mean it. You’re here for more than just sarcastic commentary.” Matthias raised an eyebrow back at him, pointing again with his spoon. “And, for your information, _we_ are making pumpkin cheesecake snickerdoodles, which are very seasonally inappropriate but delicious nonetheless.”

“... Is snickerdoodle a real word?”

“Believe me, it surprised me too. But yes, I think? I mean, is anything actually real?” With that, Matthias pulled a small slip of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and looked around. “... Okay, so I forgot allspice, and I doubt an average college student is going to have any laying around, so… we’ll just make do later. Can you measure out a cup of butter, a cup of sugar, and half a cup of brown sugar and put it in the mixer?”

“What?”

“Just a cup of sugar and butter and half a cup of brown sugar. That’s all you need to do.”

Measuring out the sugar wasn’t too bad, except it puffed up and flew everywhere, and pouring some back just meant it would sit there unevenly. Kaz decided that one side sticking far up past the rim and the other side being only about half deep balanced out to one cup. Okay, sugar done. One cup of butter. He looked over at the box of sticks Matthias had passed to him, and…

“How much butter is one cup?”

Matthias, already halfway through whisking his ingredients together, looked up with a small patch of flour on his nose. “Two sticks. You’ve really never done this before, have you?”

“How could you tell?” Kaz deadpanned, throwing the two sticks in. “What do I do now?”

“Turn the mixer on around half speed and let it run for a few minutes. Uh, check the paddle every so often to make sure it’s not all stuck to it.”

“Okay. Will do.” He turned on the mixer, only startling a little bit when it started up. As it ran, he glanced up at Matthias, who _had_ been looking at him but flicked his gaze away when Kaz had look up.

Wylan’s words from a few months ago echoed in his mind. _You might as well make a move at some point. Put that boy out of his misery._ Deep breath. Here it goes.

“Matthias, what are we?”

“What?” Matthias dropped the egg he was just about to crack, causing it to shatter and spill all over the counter. “Shit. What do you mean?”

“What are we?”

He reached for a rag, staring at Kaz, concerned. “Is this one of those dissociative episodes again? I can get Inej, if you need? That last one was scary as fuck-”

“No, I’m fine. I just was wondering what…” He waved his hands, trying to figure out how to convey what he meant. “You know. What _we_ are.”

“I mean… you’re Vietnamese, I’m Norwegian? I’m guessing that’s not what you meant though. Um, we’re both college students?”

“That’s not…” Kaz shook his head. Why did he try to do this? “Like, what our relationship is.”

Matthias went pale. “Uhh… We’re roommates? We’re friends? I think we’re friends?”

“Is there anything else?”

“Kaz, I don’t know what you’re getting at.” He finally looked down and started cleaning up that egg while Kaz steeled himself for the next thing he was going to say. _You literally survived being homeless, almost drowning in a hurricane, and two suicide attempts. You can do this._

“Wylan told me about the text you sent Jesper a few months ago.” Matthias glanced up from mopping up the counter, blank. “The one from when the heating went out.”

It was like he’d dropped a bomb. For a moment Matthias just looked at him, confused, and then it was as though he’d been shocked. He backed up, eyes wide, still bearing the smudge of flour on his nose. “Shit, Kaz, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that and I feel awful-”

All that Kaz said was, “No.”

“No?”

Shit.

“No, don’t feel bad, um, I have to go right now-”

And Kaz Brekker did what Kaz Brekker did best, which was run away from confronting his own emotions.

* * *

**queena**

ok do y’all have kaz bc we have matthias (2:42)

 

_jazz hands_

i’m sworn to secrecy (2:43)

 

**queena**

….. ill try wylan (2:45)

 

_jazz hands_

PLS DON’T

FINE WE DO HAVE HIM (2:45)

 

**queena**

good

just makin sure (2:46)

* * *

“Wylan, you don’t get it. I _fucked it up_. It was going well, and then I didn’t know what to say and I just ran out.”

“Kaz, I asked Jesper out when I was heavily concussed and had just met him because he hit me in the head with wooden rifle. I don’t think what you did is any worse. Right, Jes?”

“Uh, sure. I thought it was very romantic though.”

After Kaz ran out of the suite, he’d somehow found himself at Wylan and Jesper’s dorm a few floors down. Thinking it was a crisis, Wylan had ushered him in only to find out it was _just_ an emotional crisis.

And that was where they found themselves.

“Look, you’ve got to talk to Matthias. You guys share a room. It’ll just get more awkward if you don’t talk about your feelings.” Kaz, on some level, knew that Jesper was right. They’ve ignored each other because of arguments before, but it always lead to a strange sort of silence in the room. And Kaz liked silence, sure; he’d rather have quiet than someone trying to talk to him all of the time, but there was always a heaviness in the air after a fight and it made his skin crawl.

“I know, but-” he said, but Wylan didn’t let him finish.

“You like him, right?”

Kaz stopped for a moment. His first instinct was to say _no, of course not,_ but he remembered what he’d told himself, and Anders, and even Inej, one night when he couldn’t sleep. _I’m trying very hard to be a better person. I’m trying to not repress every emotion I feel. I’m trying._ “Yes?”

He wasn’t familiar with romance. After all, his parents had been distant for most of the time he could remember up until his mother left. After the hurricane, his mother and her rich boyfriend had been affectionate, but they usually spoke English around each other and seemed… lacking, somehow. And then once he’d entered foster care, he’d isolated himself and never cared to notice relationships around him. But based on what Kaz had heard from pretty much all of his friends except Kuwei, what he felt for Matthias was similar. Ish. Close enough.

Wylan blinked, briefly stunned, and then said, “Okay, and Matthias doesn’t know how to hide his emotions, so we all know he likes you back. Which means there’s nothing to lose by talking about this.”

“I know, but-” Kaz started again, but Jesper cut him off.

“But what?” Jesper said, putting an arm around Wylan. “What is it that’s troubling you, young one?”

“I just don’t know what to say,” Kaz said, and once he started talking, he couldn’t stop. “I don’t know how to _do_ this. I’m trying, I really am, but I don’t know how to talk about this without fucking it up.” Neither Jesper nor Wylan responded; instead, they gave each other a look that Kaz couldn’t quite understand. “What?”

Jesper’s grin broadened until he laughed, just a little bit, and said, “You’re finally acting like a human. I can’t believe I’ve lived to see this day.”  
“What does that mean?” Kaz even threw him his trademarked Death Stare, but Jesper just kept laughing.

“You’re thinking about consequences and actually considering other people’s emotions. I cannot _believe_ I’m here to witness this.”

“Think about it this way!” Wylan interjected, leaning forwards and giving that pure smile he was known for. “We’re pretty sure Matthias is human - I mean, he’s actually a puppy, but he’s close enough- and you’re finally human, which means you two are at least the same species and therefore have much better odds at working out.”

“You guys are hopeless. I’m going home,” Kaz said, standing abruptly and rushing out.

* * *

_jazz hands_

MISSION ANNOY KAZ INTO CONFRONTATION IS SUCCESSFUL (3:03)

 

**queena**

good

we’ll send matthias to meet him (3:03)

 

_ jazz hands  _

*strokes beard*

excellent (3:05)

* * *

Kaz realized he’d been set up when Matthias entered their room ten minute after he arrived. Upon opening the door he flushed, stuttered something about needing to leave, and started to move backwards, but Kaz just shook his head and waved him in. Rotty, curled up in his lap, jumped up to greet him as he entered.

“Look, Kaz, I’m really sorry about what I said to Jesper. I should’ve figured you wanted to keep that private, and it wasn’t right of me to broadcast it like that. I understand why you’re mad.”

“I’m not angry,” Kaz said, and Matthias looked up from Rotty, his brows furrowed. “That… actually wasn’t what I was trying to get at. Can we talk?”

Matthias took a step back from the dog and sat down on his bed, slumping against the wall. “Yeah, sure. Lay it on me.” For a moment Kaz just stared at him, trying to collect his thoughts, and Matthias said, “Um, are you going to say anything, or-”

“Just give me a minute.”

“Okay. Got it.”

It took Kaz a while. There were so many things he wanted to say but also didn’t want to say at the same time, and all of his thoughts seemed to be flying above his head, just a little bit out of reach. So, eventually, he went with, “Do you remember why I asked you to room with me?”

Matthias had to think about it for a moment, but then he said, “You said I don’t pry.”

“That was a lie.”

“Well, yeah, I figured.”

A pause, then, “I was kind of making something up.”

“Yeah, that’s not news either.”

Shit, this whole conversation went better in his head. “Listen, there was no one else I could ask. Jesper… Jesper’s like a brother to me, but he’s also like _my_ brother was, and I can’t see that every day. And Wylan is so kind and pure, I couldn’t do that to him. Kuwei’s been through a lot and I didn’t know him that well, so I didn’t want to ask him. And gender-neutral housing is a pain in the ass, so Nina and Inej weren’t an option.”

“Okay, so I was just your only option. Good to know. Thanks for sharing.” Matthias nodded as he said it, his voice light but obviously hurting.

This- this wasn’t how this conversation was supposed to go. Kaz considered running out again and starting over, but that’s not really a move you can take twice in the same day. Maybe tomorrow.

So he dug his palms into his eyes and tried again. “Look, when I was in the hospital- not the actual one, the psych ward- I didn’t have any privacy. It was like they were terrified I’d strangle myself with a pillow, or drown myself in the shower, or, I don’t know, choke on potatoes or something. And I thought that would be the rest of my life; someone watching over my shoulder. I kept thinking it wouldn’t end; once my week was over, I was coming here and you’d be there, giving that _look_ all of the time, and I always have to have someone around to watch as I filled the pill box every week and lock up the rest of the bottles just so I couldn’t try to sneak more.”

Matthias stiffened, stared straight at Kaz but also a little bit past him. After a second he said in a small voice, “Did you ever try?”

“I didn’t,” Kaz said, soft, “I thought about it though.” Rotty, who had been sitting on the floor, staring between the two of them, jumped onto Kaz’s bed and settled into his lap. He scratched his ear as he continued, “I thought you’d be like one of the doctors and just pry, or try to suggest yoga and water or some shit, or you’d be like the asshole you were last year-” Matthias winced, just a bit, at that- “But you weren’t. You were patient, and supportive, and no matter what I did, you stayed kind.”

Matthias’s face went through several emotions in a very short amount of time. First he seemed surprised, then briefly content, and then finally confused. “It’s not that hard. You’re much better than my grandfather.”

Kaz… didn’t really know what to do with that, so he chose to just go past that. “So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, you’re better than I thought you’d be.”

“Thank you?” he said, face still displaying confusion. “That goes for you too, by the way.”

Take a breath. Do the thing. Put him out of his misery. “And I wanted to let you know, in reference to what you sent to Jesper, you’re not… alone in that.”

This time, it was Matthias who looked like he wanted to run. “What?”  
_Just say it. It’s three words, not that hard to say._ But saying _I like you_ sounded like some sort of adolescent thing, like what teenagers said when they’d meet in corners at the mall and hope their parents didn’t find out.

But, fuck it, Kaz was still a teenager for a few more weeks.

“Um, I think I kind of like you?”

From across the room, Kaz could tell Matthias was calculating the nearest escape route. Actually, everything in his mind was probably going _abort, abort, abort, how do you do feelings_. “I… don’t know what to do with this information.”

Kaz Brekker doesn’t do emotions, or romance, or petty things like caring about other people’s feelings. But maybe that wasn’t him. Not right now. So he stood up, pushed Rotty out of his lap, and crossed to Matthias’s bed and sat down beside him. Closer than he usually got to people.

“How long?” Matthias asked, and the rest of the question didn’t need to be said.

“It was somewhere around that one fight, where you helped me clean up afterwards. I didn’t know what it was for a long time, but eventually I was talking to Inej and it just sort… connected. And then Wylan talked about it when he took his day, and I couldn’t ignore it after that.” Kaz glanced at Matthias’s arm, thankful he was still wearing the flour-covered sweatshirt, and, just like the last time, leaned his head against his shoulder. This time, Matthias was expecting it and didn’t stiffen up in confusion; he kept his posture relaxed. Progress. And even though Kaz wasn’t touching skin, sometimes contact like that could set him off. This time, it wasn’t. Double progress. “How long, for you?”

Matthias took a deep breath before he answered. In Kaz’s position, he could hear the air enter and exit his lungs, a helpful reminder that he was alive and not a waterlogged body. “I don’t know. After I found you I started to worry, and that night I sort of… found myself at your room. I still don’t know when it crossed over from concern to actual, you know… feelings, I guess.” He sighed, and then wrapped an arm around Kaz- with a look of permission, of course, and he nodded- and added, “It’s not concern anymore. I mean, I worry about you, but I worry about everyone. But it’s not all that. I think… I think you’re really strong, and I know you care about people more than you make it seem, and…”

He didn’t need to finish. Kaz let the silence settle for a moment, listening to Matthias’s breathing and his heartbeat. “I don’t know how to do this,” he said. “I’ve never _done_ anything like this.”

“I mean, you know how my last relationship went,” Matthias said with a slight laugh. “I definitely won’t make the same mistakes. Besides, I think my grandfather would react even worse to my mentally ill Vietnamese boyfriend.” His heart stuttered for a second and he said, “I can call you that, right?”

“Of course you can.” Kaz, then, glanced over at the clock. “We should probably go to dinner or our friends will think we killed each other.”

“Oh, they probably already think that. My phone’s been blowing up for the past hour.” Kaz hummed in agreement. “I don’t really want to get up.”

“True, but either Nina or Jesper will probably freak out when we show up and I want to see their reactions.”

“... Fine, you’re right. But can we finish my cookies afterwards?”

“Deal.”

So Kaz stood up, Matthias right behind him. He opened the door, reached for his cane, and then threaded his (gloved) fingers with Matthias’s.

When they got to the dining hall, Nina screamed, Inej banged her hand on the table repeatedly, Kuwei yelled, “I KNEW IT”, Jesper almost fell out of his chair, and Wylan smiled proudly.

It was worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only one chapter left!! thank you guys so much for reading me blatantly projecting onto kaz. i love you guys so much <3
> 
> also, this entire chapter was written to a deleted song from the moana soundtrack in case you were wondering.


	10. how beautiful it is to exist

“So, I heard it was your birthday last week. Congratulations on making it to twenty! How do you feel?”

Coming from anyone else, it should sound sarcastic. Sort of a, _wow a few months ago you were very suicidal but here you are, you actually managed not to kill yourself, wow, nice job asshole_. But Anders’ smile was bright, her eyes were lit, and she leaned forward as if she _really_ wanted to hear his response.

“Strange, I guess? I never thought I’d make it this far.” Certainly, even a few months ago, he didn’t think he’d make it past nineteen. And even when he was younger, twenty seemed like an age that impossible to live to. (After all, his brother had died just a few days before reaching twenty, so the age seemed far-off and surrounded by a dark aura).

Anders grinned again, writing something down on her clipboard and then pausing. “And do you think you’ll make it another year?” It wasn’t an easy question. That lingering _no, you’ll finally do it this year and then be done_ still reared its ugly head, but it was countered by something new and different. So Kaz went with the latter voice.

“I think so. At least, I want to.”

“Can you tell me why?”

Kaz took a breath, steeling  himself. “I guess there are things I still want to do? I want to graduate, do something with history. Inej introduced me to this group that’s working with homelessness in Asia, especially with children, and I want to get involved there. And… and I have Rotty, I couldn’t leave him; plus all of my friends, I don’t want to let them down. And I have a boyfriend now, I couldn’t do that to him.”

He realized it was the wrong thing to say just after the words left his mouth. Anders’ eyes widened, she dropped her pen, and she looked up at him. He hadn’t mentioned Matthias yet. “When did _that_ happen?” she asked. Surprisingly, she didn’t sound judgemental; rather, she simply sounded curious.

“About a month ago?” It was hard to forget that date; not only was it a memorable occasion, but also Jesper had circled the day with a bright red marker and wrote “THE GAYEST DAY” on it. “It’s Matthias. My roommate.”

Anders smiled at him, picking up her pen and resuming her notes. “Matthias, is it? He sounds like a good guy, based on what you said. I’m glad you’ve found someone, although it’s important to not take on more than you’re ready to deal with. Also, it is a bad idea to room with a significant other; however, in your circumstance, I don’t know if it can be avoided.”

“We’re taking it slow,” Kaz said, hands closely knit together. “I mean, we don’t do a lot. We talk, sometimes we hold hands if I’m feeling up to it. It’s very calm. And next year we’re all getting a suite, so…”

“Excellent. I’m glad you two seem to have a good grasp on boundaries.” She paused, glancing up at the clock and then looking over her notes. “You live in town, correct? That’s good; we can still continue while you’re on holiday. However, I’m afraid I won’t be around for most of July; my wife and I are working at a summer camp for at-risk children. I do have a colleague who can take you on for the month, but-”

“That isn’t necessary.”

“Excuse me?”

Kaz had gotten past the point of interrupting her a few months ago. Now, it only happened if she was really pushing him too far or if she said something blatantly _wrong_ , which was very uncommon. This was one of those situations. “I’m not keeping the apartment in town. I… Jesper asked me to come home with him again for the summer. So I’m doing that.”

It took her a moment to process that. When she did, she turned a paper over on her clipboard. “Well, that’s wonderful! I’m happy that you’re spending time with family this summer. They live a few hours away, right? I can get in contact with someone around there to continue these sessions, if you’d like. It is your choice whether or not to discontinue for the summer, but we’ve made so much progress lately that I would strongly recommend continuing.”

There was a part of him that didn’t want her to bother to find a contact for the summer, that still claimed he was independent enough to not need it. He swallowed it down and said, “Yes. I’d love that.”

She smiled bright, the way she always did when he made progress like that. “That’s wonderful! I’ll look into people around there, and give you a call when I find someone. For now, though, I’d like to thank you for being so willing to work with me. It’s been rough, but you’ve come a very long way. I’m proud.”   
When she stood up to usher him out she offered her hand for a shake, the same way she had at his first appointment. After a moment of hesitation, Kaz took it, bare-handed. The contact was unpleasant, but there wasn’t the physical revulsion that sometimes accompanied it.

Kaz could feel her beaming when he took Matthias’s arm on the way out.

* * *

“After how much of a rollercoaster these past two years have been, I think we deserve a vacation. Don’t you agree, Kaz?” Kaz, at that moment, was zoning out while staring at a slightly out-of-place wood panel on the cafeteria wall. He nodded despite hearing none of what Nina was saying. “Kaz right now is demonstrating the fact that we all need a fucking break.”

“I agree,” Kuwei said, stirring crackers into his soup until they formed a mushy lump in the center. “It’s been stressful.”

“But where would we go?” Inej said, dropping her apple. “We’re all poor college students. We don’t exactly have a lot of money for a trip.” She was right, unfortunately; when you hang around a group of deeply fucked up people, funds tend to be tight.

“The lake,” Kaz interrupted, causing everyone to stop and turn to stare at him. “Jesper, you remember the lake. Your dad brought us there once.”

Jesper thought for a moment, and then broke out in a grin. “Oh, yeah! The last day of school! Man, that was a good time.” He looked around at the stupefied faces around the table. “It’s about an hour from where I live, so it’s… a bit of a drive for some of you guys. But it’s pretty quiet and cheap to get in, even though it is a little trashy. But there is an incredible ice cream place nearby, so that’s nice.”

Matthias just shrugged. “I’ve never been to a beach, so I guess I might as well go to a lake. It makes sense.”

“Same here,” Kuwei said. Nina and Wylan nodded.

Inej looked around for a moment and then said, “Well, I guess we’re going to the lake.”

Two weeks later, classes were finished, Kaz’s (and Kuwei’s) belongings were packed into Jesper’s truck, and he lay on a shitty covering of “sand”. He’d insisted that he was just content to lay there but Inej had forced him to set up an umbrella, citing his ridiculously pale skin as a risk of sunburn.

“You’re not trying the water?” Wylan asked as he knelt down beside Kaz. “I thought this was your idea.”

“It was,” he said, adjusting his sunglasses. “Just for atmosphere. Plus I figured you all would like it.” After a moment he added, “Last time we came here I went in the water and ended up having a panic attack. Colm got me out, but a lifeguard thought I was drowning and he wasn’t really understanding the whole ‘don’t-touch-him-it’ll-make-it-worse’ concept, so that kind of ruined the whole day.”

“Oh.”

“But we did get ice cream once I calmed down. It was very good ice cream.”

“Oh. That’s… that’s good.” Wylan reached out to pat his knee but then decided against it. “Inej isn’t much of a swimmer so she’ll probably join you out here at some point.”

“Excellent. Now go in there and splash Jesper for me.” Before he left, Kaz reached out and ruffled Wylan’s hair.

As he walked away Kaz sat up on his elbows, watching the little crew hanging out near the shore. Nina sat in a tube, happily floating around until Inej flipped her over, giggling the whole time. Matthias stood slightly apart, hands on his hips while he took in the feeling of lukewarm, natural water moving around him. He was only broken out of his stance when Kuwei, also in a tube, screamed because he started to drift away. When Wylan sprinted up behind Jesper and splashed him as much as possible, he instantly turned around and kissed him.

Part of Kaz wished he could join them. Actually, a large part beckoned for him to just say _screw it_ and run into the water with his friends, but he knew it was more than he probably should handle. He’d discussed the water phobia with Anders before and they agreed they’d work on it in a controlled environment, not in an open lake.

That was a problem for another day. Step by step. Brick by brick.

After an hour or so Inej flopped down beside him, putting her glasses back on. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m glad I survived.”

She turned her head to the side, brows furrowed. “Not what I was asking about, but I’m happy you’re feeling like that. I hope this continues.”

They sat in silence for a while, just staring up at the clouds that slowly drifted past. Sounds of the excitement in the water washed over them occasionally, but in general it was by far the most relaxed Kaz had felt in a long time.

And then Nina flopped on the ground, draping herself across Inej. “Darling, I’m _starving_ . Can’t we _please_ take the lunch now?”

“Yes, may we?” Kuwei asked, kneeling in front of her with his hands clasped together, looking as desperate as possible. Inej just laughed as she reached for the cooler bag.

“You’re all hopeless.”

Lunch was quite the affair, what with all of the different dietary restrictions. It had to be halal for Inej, kosher for Nina, vegetarian for Matthias, dairy-free for Kuwei, and compatible with Jesper’s picky habits. But it worked out, and afterwards they went to the little ice cream shop that was perhaps not quite as amazing as it was years ago.

Still, Kaz and Matthias shared a sundae that was drenched in sprinkles and fudge, the way Kaz loved it, and Nina rolled her eyes at how ridiculously domestic they were.

Halfway through eating Jesper got a call and, without saying anything, stood up from the table and walked out of the restaurant. Kaz was just about to follow him when he returned, teary eyed. “Jesper, what-”

“We got her,” he said. “Dad applied to keep Alina permanently with us. He just got approved this morning. Oh my god. I have a little sister, and she’s the _cutest_ thing ever.” And then he turned to Kaz and said, “ _You_ have a little sister for the first time.”

 

It was enough, he decided.

It was finally enough.

* * *

 

_Calling Asshole Heart Emoji_

“Kaz!”

“Hey, Matt.”

“How’s it going? I missed you!”

“It’s only been three weeks.”

“I know, but that’s a _long time._ I feel like we just started dating and now we can’t see each other.”

“I’d offer you to stay here, but we’re kind of full. Kuwei takes up a surprising amount of space.”  
“Really? He’s so _tiny_. I’d never believe that. How’s it going with you guys?”

“It’s good, I guess. It’s loud, but I expected that. Alina’s just glad to have _three_ big brothers this time instead of one or two, although she was disappointed that neither of us brought our boyfriends home. So Kuwei decided that he’s also Jesper’s boyfriend now just to make her happy.”

“Oh, god. How did Wylan respond?”

“I think he took it pretty well. He laughed about it, at least.”

Pause.

“Are you all right? You look tired.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ve been working a lot. Trying to save up to get a place away from Racist Grandpa because I don’t think I can take this anymore. He tried to rip a girl’s hijab off the other day.”

“Oh, shit. Did you stop him?”

“Of course I did. I also apologized to her, but I feel kind of bad because I did that and then fell back into step with him. I’m close to being able to afford a shitty apartment if I keep working during the school year, so I can finally get rid of him.”

“... You can take my apartment. I didn’t sell it yet. You could stay there, I don’t need it anymore.”

“Shit, are you serious? That’s amazing, Kaz! Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’ve pretty much been officially adopted by the Faheys.”

“I’m glad you’ve got a good family, finally. I’m so happy for you.”

“Hey, before you move out I’m going to have to meet your grandpa. I’m sure he’d hate me.”

“Oh god, he’d have a seizure. I’d laugh.”

“Me too.”

Pause.

“Since we’re talking about family, I got another letter from my mother today.”

“And?”

“It was the same shit as always: I’m sorry, we should talk, please stop telling everyone I tried to kill you. I think I’m actually going to do it this time.”

“... Kaz, you gotta clarify that, because I’m suddenly very worried-”

“Call her. I think I’m going to call her tonight. Try to… try to finally talk about everything that happened.”

“That’s good. I think you’re in a good enough place that you can do that now. Good luck with her!”

“Thanks. I might need it.”

Pause.

“Hey, Matt, I wanted to thank you for staying around me. It was rough for a long time but you stuck with it, and it means a lot to me. I don’t… think I’d have made it through those first few weeks without you.”

“Don’t mention it. I wasn’t going to leave you alone. I’m just glad you asked for help. I think it’s made a difference, and I’m glad you’re doing better now. Plus I got a boyfriend out of the whole deal, so it’s all good.”

“Thanks. I’m sorry we couldn’t have gotten together in better circumstances, and I’m sorry we can’t really, you know, touch often.”

“That’s nothing, believe me. We’re making it work. I don’t mind at all.”

Pause.

“I have to go to work soon, so I’ll have to let you go. Love you.”

“Love you.”

 

_fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the long wait on this! it's been a rough couple of weeks for me, and i kind of didn't want to admit that this was coming to an end tbh.
> 
> i just wanted to thank you guys for your warm reception to this fic that blatantly came out of me venting and projecting my issues onto kaz. writing this has been incredibly cathartic for me, especially when it comes to chronic pain things. this is also the first fic i've ever finished, and i've been writing fanfiction for a LONG time. this series just catapulted me back in after a couple of years, so i wanted to thank all of you guys for bringing me back to something i loved so much. i love all of you guys <3
> 
> even though this series is over, i may write some oneshots in this verse! also, shameless self-promotion, but my voltron au [winner gets the universe](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9687389) is in progress, albeit updating very slowly. additionally, keep your eyes out for something completely different coming out in the next few weeks!
> 
> thanks guys for being amazing. i love you all

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on [tumblr](http://pippims.tumblr.com) where you can join me in screaming about my murder children
> 
> thank you guys for the super kind comments! i probably won't get around to responding to all of them any more just because i feel weird inflating the comment numbers as high as it would get if i responded to all of them. still, every time you post a comment, just picture me screaming and probably crying a bit because it makes my day when you guys leave comments <3
> 
> i also want to give a shoutout to [libby](http://helvr.tumblr.com), who is the inspiration for a lot of the ideas in this fic and is always a huge help while writing! keep your eyes out for some of her writing


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